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JOHN-N 0-BRAWN 


























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COPYHIGHT, 1923, BY 
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY ‘ 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION 
INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN 

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES 
AT 

THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y. 

First Edition 

WV 3 I923'! 

©CU7 59662' 



TO 

LAURA 

(katherine’s mother) 


My third maxim was to endeavour always to 
conquer myself rather than fortune and to change 
my desires rather than the order of the world and 
in general to bring myself to believe that there is 
nothing wholly in our power except our thoughts** 

—Rene Descartes 



CONTENTS 

Dream Stuff . 

BOOK I 

PAGB 

Armageddon . 

BOOK II 

. 153 

BOOK III 


Phyllida Returns a Few Bottles.223 






BOOK I 


DREAM STUFF 



JOHN-NO-BRAWN 


CHAPTER I 

T he sun sets on October the third in Louis¬ 
ville, Kentucky, about forty minutes after five. 
At five minutes after five on October the third, 
1916, John Brawn stood at the corner of Second and 
Jefferson streets and debated whether or no he would 
yield to a peculiar sentimental streak of the moment 
and go a couple of blocks out of his way for the mere 
purpose of giving some old chords in his memory a 
chance to revibrate. There was desultory traffic about 
Second and Jefferson streets; an automobile whisked 
by, careless of responsibility, for there was no traffic 
policeman stationed there; a street car had jumped its 
trolley pole on the curve and the conductor was strain¬ 
ing at the rope and looking upward, head thrown 
back as though angling for some sort of aerial game. 
There was a mingled aroma of fish and rotting vege¬ 
tables in the air and a gust of wind sent an eddy of 
trash, in which was caught an old newspaper or two, 
whirling out the centre of Second Street. But a mo¬ 
mentary rift in the clouds allowed a deep gold to 
stream through in a wide band, part of which splashed 
with its luminance the shiny round bald head of an 
old Negro who was spasmodically reining in his dis- 


2 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

pirited steed. The latter buckled in his shafts and 
vainly tried to shift the irritating bit to a lesc tender 
part of his mouth. The Negro turned with the reins 
clutched tightly to his breast and regarded the retreat¬ 
ing cloud of trash and newspapers in whose wake was 
rolling merrily his hat. And then he painfully clamb¬ 
ered down from his wagon and started after it, 
muttering to himself. There was not much of romantic 
suggestion in the scene. But there was a softness in 
the air and not so far above the blackened chimney 
pots there pressed down a blue haze that carried a 
touch of Tyrian purple and up to its under side a 
goldish mist seemed rising, dust particles merely, 
touched with a passing glory. And John Brawn turned 
and went eastward along Jefferson Street. 

At the corner he paused again and looked out First 
Street. In this direction the scene changed quite ab¬ 
ruptly, though not materially for the better. First 
Street, south of Jefferson, was a street devoted to 
leisure and the pursuits of pleasure. On each of the 
four corners stood, waiting, grog shops with well-worn 
thresholds and swinging lattice doors that were grimed 
by the touch of countless hands. 

Against the even gray of the eastern sky was a line 
of gently sloping roofs that came down to the house 
fronts like hat brims pulled down over the eyes. And 
there was a dull, listless, waiting air about the dingy 
windows that bespoke hopeless old age. The houses 
w^ere grimy and battered and they made no pretence 
of being other than what they appeared, but in some 
magic fashion they seemed to Brawn to be clothed 
in a mist of romance. For he looked, not as normal 
pedestrians along the normal line of vision, but up- 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 3 

ward toward where roofs and sky came together, and 
the yeast of imagination was stirring and mixing with 
his perceptions. Here had been the Louisville of the 
’sixties. Those windows, once curtained with soft 
drapes and chintzes, had been the outlook from a 
glamorous and highly coloured existence. Very faint¬ 
ly they suggested crinolines and shawls and billowing 
skirts and gallantry and high spirit and danger. Then 
had been a more subtle mingling of freedom and con¬ 
vention. Now it was on the outskirt of a metallic, a 
machine-made, civilization. The thought of his task 
just completed contrasted strongly with the tone of his 
mind. He was a lawyer. He had been investigating 
the facts of an accident for an insurance company 
which he represented. He had come into this other 
world with a stereotyped questionnaire and the results 
of his investigation were in the leather case in his 
hand. Fancy a lawyer of the ’sixties or ’seventies 
proceeding in such manner! But then in the ’sixties 
produce men did not run motor trucks to the endanger- 
ment of the public, nor was there the complex machin¬ 
ery of defence built up against the natural hazards of 
business. Nowadays a young lawyer was nothing but 
a glorified clerk. Any one with the ability to read and 
write could have done what he had just finished doing. 
The sunlight flashed for a moment obliquely across an 
opaque pane of glass in a top window like a sulphurous 
flame on a metallic pool and then winked off again, and 
the window stared forth as blankly as before. Brawn 
started and slowly crossed the street and turned 
south. 

Midway in the next block there stood an incongru¬ 
ous structure of yellow pressed brick. It was younger 


4 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

than its fellows but dingy from the same causes. It 
was like a man in a dirty, high white collar standing 
in a crowd of workmen in flannel shirts. It boasted of 
a cupola of nondescript architecture, new plate-glass 
windows, and a pair of double doors flush with the 
sidewalk. It was the museum, the last resting place 
of the old fire-fighting equipment that had escaped a 
ruthless scrap heap. Just what had stood on the site 
of this new building Brawn could not for the moment 
remember, but then his mind was drifting about in a 
maze of uncoordinated sensations. Thither he bent 
his steps as though moved by a fixed purpose. 

He passed four or five of the old houses. They 
were all very much alike. From the pavement to the 
front door of each ran a flight of wooden steps, paral¬ 
lel with the street and flanked by a single lattice railing, 
to a sort of stoop or balcony whence one entered the 
house. This left a recess beneath which, by means of a 
couple of steps downwards, one entered the basement 
or servants’ quarters, now invariably dark and greasy 
and very smelly. In the past years these stoops with 
their wood railings had doubtless been proud symbols 
of high life and on summer evenings in star-light been 
linked with the soft rustle of skirts and clinging scents 
and light laughter. Now they were empty, all save 
the middle one, whose railing supported the full-blown 
body of a young Negress with slumbering eyes and full, 
red lips and an unspeakably dirty, greasy wrapper that 
rather frankly revealed her native, corporeal charms. 
She leaned across the railing with her elbows propped 
comfortably beneath her and watched her world. 
Brawn gave her a passing glance. And then he pulled 
up short, with a start. 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 5 

In his abstraction he had been walking along with 
his head in the clouds and had not noticed where he 
was going. And he barely escaped running over a 
small black body that was squirming on the pavement. 
Brawn stepped over it and then paused and looked 
down. An incredibly small Negro baby was sprawled 
on top of a wiggling, dirty, woolly dog that was reach¬ 
ing out a pink tongue to lick the baby’s face, and with 
some success. Two bare, wiry, brown legs curved 
behind it in a perfect bow; about its middle was 
draped a very dirty rag, and up under its arm pits 
the skirt of its smock was rolled, leaving it practically 
naked. 

“Sam!” called a rich languorous voice. “Git up 
outen de street. Ain’ you know white folks ap’ to run 
oveh you?” 

Brawn glanced toward the voice. The woman had 
not moved but was gazing at him, elbows on the rail¬ 
ing, quite inscrutable but with just the trace of a lan¬ 
guid though brazen amusement in the depths of her 
eyes. The baby raised its head and stared at him and 
then scuttled for the steps, using its hands for propel¬ 
lers, and with its legs dragging out behind like some 
mortally wounded animal. 

Brawn turned and proceeded on his way. 

He came to the door of the engine house, paused, 
and then pushed it open and went in. For a moment 
he stood, an intruder in the silence of the place and 
then called out: 

“Hi there, Mr. McBurney. Coin’ to work all day?” 

Back in a far corner of the narrow room a face 
looked up from a desk and then some one got up slowly 
and came toward him. It was a little old man with 


6 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

spectacles and derby hat, coatless and wearing a vest 
that hung open, its pockets crammed with pencils and 
pen holders, pocket rules and spectacle cases, and a 
heavy, pendulous gold watch chain. “Hey?” he said. 
“Better light up. Hey?” 

“Never mind the lights. It’s Brawn. John Brawn. 
You ought to knock off for the day anyway. Ruin your 
eyes and your health.” Brawn laughed with patroniz¬ 
ing heartiness and went over and took hold of the old 
man’s arm. It had been a stock joke with him to twit 
the old fellow about his industry, which was of as 
tenuous a quality as possible still to deserve the name. 
Mr. McBurney was the secretary of the association 
and his duty was to keep the minutes and the rolls and 
send out the bills for the dues. The association having 
dwindled to less than a dozen members gave its secre¬ 
tary a minimum of duties, but in addition to keeping 
the records he had the added one of keeping up the 
fire in the little stove in the corner on chill days and 
locking up the place when the day’s business was over. 
He looked up into Brawn’s face with the eyes that 
were very dim and rheumy and then recognition slowly 
dawned. 

“Hey? John Brawn? Sure. John Brawn. Course 
I know you. Come set down.” And he seized the 
young man by the wrist, then peered intently at the 
floor to make sure of his footing and then made great 
show of dragging his victim back into his lair. “Set 
right down. Set right down. I wuz wonderin’ what 
had become of you.” 

Brawn followed him, laughing. “How’d your oil 
stock pan out?” he called. Mr. McBurney was not 
strictly deaf, but his attention being hard to get and 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 7 

still harder to keep made this method seem at least the 
most probably effective one. 

The old man turned and grasping the back of a chair 
thrust it forward. “Oil stock. Hey?— Set down. 
Oil stock?—Dunno. They wrote me they had started 
to drill a month ago. An’ then they wrote as how 
they’d struck sand and then another letter that things 
were lookin’ mighty good. But here lately I ain’t 
never had a word. ’Pears like it takes a powerful 
time to get down to see where they ’re at. Powerful 
slow.” 

John Brawn sat down in the proffered chair. 
“Think they’re on the level, Mr. McBurney?” 

Mr. McBurney looked up. “Hey?—On the level? 
—Don’t know. How’d I know? All the boys took 
stock. Sam Baron’s boy. Know Sam Baron? He’s 
promotin’ it. Sam’ us always square.” He turned to 
his desk and fished around in the pigeon holes. 

“How much you put in it?” 

Mr. McBurney looked back at him reflectively. 
“How much?—Hey? Ten dollars. Each of us put 
in ten dollars.—All except Jurney Bishop. He ain’t 
seed ten dollars fer fifty years.” 

Brawn laughed softly and gazed up at the wall 
above the desk. In a plain oak frame was a long 
parchment strip with two columns of names—the or¬ 
ganization roll. And after each name, all save a very 
few, there stood a letter “X” in broad tremulous lines, 
signifying for the name it stood after the distinction of 
having passed faithfully on. It was very quiet—the 
noise of the city seemed as remote as though of another 
life—and through the window Brawn could see a 
high brick wall around a small square of grass, and a 


8 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

gray patch of sky. In the front of the room, out in 
the larger hallway, loomed the shadowy bulk of the 
old machine with here and there the dull gleam of 
polished brass. Life had paused here for a moment 
before plunging on. 

“So you haven’t heard from them lately,” resumed 
Brawn at length in a musing tone. “Tell you what, 
Mr. McBurney. Next time, you see me before you 
invest your money.” The old man had turned again 
to the desk and was still rummaging in the drawers. 

“By the way,” said Brawn. “I was wondering if 
you folks might want some old things of the gov- 
ernor s : 

Mr. McBurney looked up momentarily. 

“There’s an old silver trumpet and a helmet and a 
couple of red shirts and some papers—rolls and 
things.” 

“Keep ’em yourself,” said Mr. McBurney. “Ain’t 
they worth nothin’ to you?” 

“That isn’t it. You see, my aunt Mamie died last 
week. And they’re selling the old stuff. Haven’t any 
place to keep ’em. Had to find me a place to live. 
There isn’t any room where I’m stopping.” 

“Hey?” said Mr. McBurney. 

“I say there isn’t any room where I am. T^iought 
maybe the association might want ’em.” 

Mr. McBurney pivoted round in his chair, a look 
of finality on his face. “Can’t find the blamed thing 
anywhere—Say your aunt Mamie died?—Too bad. 
Too bad.” He seemed to be arranging his thoughts in 
the back of his head and with some difficulty. “Maybe 
I took it home. Well, never mind.—So you had to 
move.” 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 9 

“Yes,” said Brawn. “I’m at Mrs. Melton’s. Out 
on Compton Street.” 

“Hey? —Out on Compton Street?” 

Brawn rose slowly to his feet. “I just thought I’d 
drop in and see if you wanted any of his old trophies. 
—For the room, you know. You’ve got a lot of stuff 
like it there on the shelves,” looking off indefinitely 
into the dim hallway. And then he started toward the 
door. 

“Don’t be in a hurry,” said Mr. McBurney. 

“Have to.—I’ve an engagement to-night. I thought 
I’d drop in on you and see.” 

Mr. McBurney followed him slowly through the 
silent room. They came to the door and Brawn 
opened it. Twilight was beginning to settle and it 
was warm and soft and provocative. There was 
an odour of frying in the air and to the northwest 
above the cornices there peeped the edge of a 
rosy cloud. 

“So you’ve moved,” said Mr. McBurney. “How’s 
the law?” 

The question startled with its definiteness. “Oh, 
pretty good.—Little slow at first.” 

“Son of Judge Brawn oughtn’t to have any trouble 
gettin’ started.” 

Brawn stepped over to the wall and inspected a lurid 
print. It was a picture of a large structure engulfed 
in flames. Forms could be seen at the windows and 
up the ladders firemen swarmed. The sky above the 
burning building was glaring red and in the street 
in the foreground a number of people were dashing 
along madly, women with streaming hair, men waving 
arms aloft. And in one corner a little group was op- 


10 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

crating an old hand engine, hanging on to the sidebars 
with both arms and pumping for dear life. 

“Those were the days,” said Brawn softly. 

Mr. McBurney warmed to such appreciation and 
came and stood beside him. 

“They sure were. And your pappy was there with 
the best of ’em.” He leaned over and peered into the 
picture. “That’s the old Hope Number Five.—I 
remember as how Asa Brawn saved her from smashin’ 
to pieces on the Portland Bridge.” His tone became 
deep and mellow and reflective and John Brawn, scent¬ 
ing a tale and a delay, turned to the door and looked 
furtively out. But the old man was not to be denied. 
He came and stood beside him in the doorway and the 
noise of passing machines lent a curious background to 
his voice. 

“It was in August sixty-nine, I remember,” he went 
on, “on a Thursday night. It had been awful dry and 
hot for a week or so and everybody was settin’ out in 
front along on their porches in their white dresses 
and things.—About nine o’clock the bells began to 
ring.—I was settin’ in front of Musgrove’s paint shop, 
up on Market Street then, and three or four of the 
boys was with me. Well, we all jumped up and ran to 
the engine house and pulled the old machine out onto 
the street. That was her—in the picture there—the 
old Hope Number Five, and she cost nine hundred 
dollars. 

“By the time we got her on the street there was a 
crowd; Bill Jordan, Aleck Smith, Asa Brawn—all the 
gang. And then somebody called out, ‘It’s* in Port¬ 
land,’ and we were off. I’ll never forget that run. It 
was about two mile, straight down Main Street, and 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN ii 

dusty!—and behind us all the way we could hear the 
crowd with the Reindeer yellin’ and callin’ not fifty 
yards behind us. You know it always was a race 
between us and the Reindeer and we usually got the 
best of it.” 

John Brawn looked helplessly off at the dimming 
sky. 

“When we come to Twenty-eighth Street where the 
road branches off to the right and goes down to the 
New Albany Bridge—it’s quite a steep hill—some one 
calls out, ‘There she is!’ and we all looked and sure 
enough there was the fire all right but it was over 
across the river—over in Albany.—Well, that lets us 
out. And we were all slackin’ up when Asa Brawn 
yells, ‘Let’s go to her anyhow, boys.’—And we did, 
although it weren’t any of our affair. New Albany 
havin’ a fire department of her own.” 

Mr. McBurney paused and drew forth an ancient 
quill toothpick from a vest pocket and reflectively 
picked his teeth. 

“You ain’t ever been down that Twenty-eighth 
Street hill, have you?” 

Brawn admitted he had not. 

“Well, I reckon that was before your time. It’s 
all built up now. Well—none of us realized what a 
grade that was down to the bridge, that is not till we 
got to rollin’. We hadn’t got more nor fifty feet be¬ 
fore we realized it. I had a holt on the rope up near 
the head and on the right side. And directly the boys 
commenced to drop off. The pace was too hot for 
’em. There was about thirty with the old Hope that 
night. About halfway down the hill I says to myself, 
‘Reckon you can keep up with the machine so’s she 


12 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

won’t run over you?’ For we were goin’ pretty near 
as fast as a horse can run and gamin’ every minute.— 
And then all of a sudden I saw the lights of the bridge 
ahead and I done some quick thinkin’. You see the 
bridge was divided in two parts—a right and left— 
and in the middle were a stone buttress dividin’ the 
two sides so’s nobody could make a mistake of drivin’ 
on the wrong side. And over to the right the banks 
of the river looked mighty black and mighty deep. 
And the space for us to run through was mighty slim— 
looked like we would ’a’ had a close squeak. And 
behind me I heard the boys a-shoutin’ and a-yellin’ and 
the drag rope was a-draggin’ on the ground behind 
me, and I could hear the old Hope rollin’ and bumpin’ 
along. And I says to myself, ‘Here’s where you drops • 
out’ And I gave a run and a jump and lit in the 
bushes on the side of the road. And just as I looked 
up I see the old Hope go swingin’ past, with her 
tongue dippin’ up and down just like she was a-scoopin’ 
up sand.” The old man paused a moment for breath 
and John Brawn waited silently for him to go on. 

Mr. McBurney then looked up into the young man’s 
face impressively. “There weren’t but one man left on 
that whole machine.—And that man were—Asa 
Brawn.—He had holt of the tongue by the ring, on 
the right side and he were runnin’ along, leapin’ and 
slidin’ and I could see him watchin’ the road. And I 
hollers to him to keep to the right as fur as possible, 
cause the road just naturally tipped a bit the other way, 
and he was gone, a-windin’ down the road. And I set 
there and I waited. And I waited and I listened but I 
didn’t hear no crash. And directly some of the boys 
came a-runnin’ up, breathin’ hard and askin’ a thousand 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 13 

excited questions. And when I got my breath I went 
on down the road and out on the bridge. And there 
weren’t no signs of a wreck, but I tell you it were a 
narrer squeak, for the road were mighty narrer and the 
old Hope goin’ so fast. And by and by we came on 
Asa Brawn a-settin’ on the edge of the bridge with 
his feet hangin’ over above the water, and he were a- 
breathin’ heavy, and when we come up he turned and 
grinned at us, like. And down a little further on, the 
old Hope stood just as quiet as a wind-broken horse.” 

John Brawn smiled. “Well,” he said. “That’s a 
new one. I never heard that one before.” 

“That were just like Asa Brawn. Not afraid of 
nothin’. Up to all sorts of deviltry.—He were a good 
man.” He shook his head slowly. 

They stood there in silence, together, with the twi¬ 
light slipping down into the street, and the wisps of 
smoke curling slowly upward into the steely blue-gray 
of the sky and the hum of the city about them, and the 
years seemed to slip away, roll back and leave the city 
misty and glamorous in its youth, waiting, expectant, 
for life. A rising eagerness came to John Brawn, a 
quickening of pulse, a warming about the heart, a 
little flame of high resolve. He turned and laid a hand 
on the old man’s shoulder. 

“Thank you for telling me that story,” he said and 
then he turned to go. And there crashed upon his 
senses a sudden medley of sounds, dispelling the glam¬ 
our. There was a shout, a great screaking noise, and 
then a woman’s piercing cry. He turned automatically 
to look, at the shout. And,it all took place before his 
eyes, impersonal, vague, like the action on a movie 
screen. He saw a big car come swerving to the curb 


14 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

and stop. He saw a little bunch of something caught up 
and rolled like a bundle of rags. He saw a man 
clamber out of the car and come around in front of 
it and then he saw a woman come running across the 
pavement and throw herself upon the man, screaming 
hideously. 

Instantly the street seemed swarming with people 
and above the excited chatter he could hear the scream¬ 
ing of the woman: 

“Lemme at him. Lemme at him. My Gawd, my 
baby!” And directly two men dragged her back out 
of the little crowd, and her dress was torn from the 
upper half of her body. The smooth brown flesh shone 
like silk in the soft evening light. Her eyes were wild 
and staring and tears streamed like dry things down 
her cheeks and her hands clutched convulsively in the 
air as she was drawn away. Brawn saw her face as she 
passed. It was the Negress of the balcony, she of 
the languid, impersonal regard. And then directly 
some one came out of the crowd holding out a little 
form away from his body like an unclean thing. It 
was quite limp and one little leg dangled all askew, and 
its head hung away. Quite impersonal, too, it seemed. 
Sam had got too much under foot. 

Then there came a man, it was a youngish man, only 
a boy really, with a very white face and wild-eyed and 
dishevelled and he asked ceaseless questions in a very 
dry, hard, shrill voice. And a big man in shirt 
sleeves and black linen cap held him tightly by the 
arm.—It all passed before his eyes. And then he felt 
something tugging away at his arm. As from a great 
distance he turned and gave heed. Mr. McBurney 
W'as whispering to him, a sharp gleam in his eyes. “Go 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 15 

give ’em your name,” he was saying. “Go give ’em 
your name.” 

He vaguely heard and understood not at all. 
Rather impatiently he shook off the hand. 

“You’re the first on the ground. It’ll make a good 
case. We saw it with our own eyes.—Go on in there 
and take holt.” The old man was tremulously eager. 

Brawn’s throat went dry and there was a hard, cold 
lump in his chest. The excited stir of the crowd, the 
straining, eager faces, the buzz of voices and back in 
the hollow of the grimy house the muffled, staccato 
screaming of a woman—became suddenly revolting. 
“It’s not in my line,” he said at length and his voice 
sounded very thin and without conviction.—“Well— 
I’ll bring you those things some day next week.—I 
must be off.” He shouldered his way through the 
crowd and started off briskly southward along First 
Street. 

Mr. McBurney watched his retreating figure with 
an odd look of question on his face. 


CHAPTER II 


B y the time Brawn had reached Compton 
Street the fogs of depression had pretty well 
scattered. It had likewise got pretty late. 
Ordinarily he was the sort to take a street car even 
for short distances, but to-night his perceptions which 
had been slow to respond persisted in continuing to 
vibrate and received frequent stimuli from his imagin¬ 
ation. On First Street, about two blocks south of 
Green where the accident had occurred, it had come to 
him that to make a fight on reckless driving, dangerous 
traffic of any sort, would be worthy of the most starved 
ambition. And the raw edge of his nerves lent vigour 
to that dawning determination, in an excess of mobile 
feeling. He was working himself up. At Broadway 
he was vacillating between high resolve and practical 
discomfort. If it had not been five long blocks back 
to the scene which would not be dispelled from his 
memory; if it had not been so late—too late perhaps 
to find any of the chief actors still upon the scene; if 
it had not been that such action would have stamped 
him as a procrastinator with decision, especially in the 
eyes of his friend Mr. McBurney, he would have 
turned back and hurled himself relentlessly into the 
struggle on the side of justice. It was this last reason, 
really, that held him. His was not a procrastinat¬ 
ing nature. On the contrary it responded facilely to 

i6 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 17 

the impulse of the moment. And so when he came 
to Broadway, he turned west instead of back. And 
just then a woman waved to him from a stealthy elec¬ 
tric that slipped past, around a corner and out of sight. 
It was just the shadow of a wave, a mere raising of 
the hand. But then there was the interesting outline 
of a small head and a small hat, momentarily visible 
against an uncertain background, a suggestion of ele¬ 
gance, refinement, charm and mystery. For he had not 
recognized the woman nor the car. And he caught 
himself standing hat in hand and staring after a 
shadow, in a quick flash of pleasure. The traffic 
crusade was forgotten. Traffic presented such a 
multitude of phases. He continued west on Broad¬ 
way. 

When he opened the door at 517 Compton Street 
the clock struck the half hour. A woman’s figure 
glided across the orange oblong of'an open door, and 
a draught of air, sucked outward as he closed the door 
behind him, carried a blend of subtle odours of unfami¬ 
liar cookery. “You’re pretty late,” came in a thin, 
tremulous voice. 

Brawn went to the door, hat and brief case in hand, 
and stood smiling. “Smells mighty good. Something 
smells mighty good. Ummmm!—What is it, Mrs. 
Melton?” 

Mrs. Melton looked up over her shoulder from 
where she stooped before the sideboard and peered at 
him over her glasses. “If you don’t hurry, supper will 
be all cold, and you can’t eat just the smell.” 

A touch of sharpness in the adjuration checked the 
light in Brawn’s face and he turned to go. “I’ll be 
right down. I’ll be right down. Won’t take me five 


18 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

minutes. Won’t take me three minutes.” He bounded 
up the steps two at a time, went back along a narrow 
hall to a rear chamber, opened the door and threw 
on the light. 

On a little table just inside the door was a pile of 
mail. He picked it up, tucking his hat and portman¬ 
teau under his arm. He ran through it cursorily. 
Then he broke open the first envelope. It contained 
a bill from a florist. He let it fall upon the floor. He 
opened the second. It disclosed an engraved announce¬ 
ment of the coming marriage of a Miss Elise Bain- 
bridge to a Mr. Baker of Toledo. He let it fall after 
the first. Then came a statement from a haberdasher 
with the epigram, “To account rendered”; then a bill 
from a candy shop, another from the Louisville Taxi¬ 
cab Company which followed its predecessors with an 
impatient fluttering, and finally a more serious-looking 
document of much greater promise. Brawn opened 
it reflectively. It was a brief statement from his club 
advising him that he had been posted. 

Brawn walked slowly over to a desk, laid his hat 
upon it carefully, and then stepped over to a far wall 
and hung his brief case on a hook there. Trouble 
darkened his face. “Wonder what they sent that 
for?” he said aloud and then stared at the ceiling with 
knitted brows. “Twenty-four fifty, twelve, and five 
—that makes—only forty-one—they’re wrong,” he 
added with decision. And then he walked over to his 
dresser and stared at himself in the glass. 

“Mr. Brawn!—^Mr. Brawn!—Your five minutes 
are up,” came a voice from below. 

Brawn started. “Be right down,” he called. And 
then he walked slowly to the bathroom and directly 


19 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

there came the sound of water running and a vigorous 
sloshing and splashing. 

When finally he entered the dining room with shin¬ 
ing face and sleekly brushed hair the clock struck seven 
and Mrs. Melton looked up at him reproachfully. 
“You men are all alike,” she said. 

“Aw now, Mrs. Melton. You mustn’t put us all in 
a class like that. Some of us are quite distinctive.” 

‘^Some of you are later than others.—What will 
you have—the outside piece or do you like it a little 
more rare?—This was a good roast, but I’m afraid 
it’s all dried out standing in the oven so long.” 

“How are you, Mrs. Hocker? You’re looking 
perter to-night, seems to me.—Oh, any part will do, 
Mrs. Melton.—The heel looks pretty good,” said 
Brawn. Mrs. Hocker went primly on with the business 
of eating as though that operation were a matter of 
reflection rather than brazen enjoyment. 

“1 just witnessed another bit of wasteful careless¬ 
ness,”- said Brawn at length, to his plate. “Automobile 
ran over a little nigger down on First Street.—Tried 
to pass a wagon on the wrong side.” 

The two ladies looked up, their repose broken. 

“Terrible thing,” said Brawn. 

“I’m afraid to go in town any more,” Mrs. Hocker 
put in. She was an unobtrusive woman in her fifties, 
with mild gray eyes, a soft fluff of graying hair piled 
high on her head with a roll in front, and fingers that 
plucked. 

“But you’re willing to take a chance, aren’t you— 
every now and then?” interjected Brawn, his mouth 
full of roast and potatoes and with a wink at Mrs. 
Melton. 


20 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

“Not any more than I can help,” replied Mrs. 
Hocker severely, and then the door bell rang. 

For a moment there was silence and then Mrs. 
Melton’s voice from the hall: 

“Did you order a taxicab, Mr. Brawn?” 

Brawn laid his napkin down. He looked at the wall 
and scowled. “Tell him to wait.—Why, it isn’t time 
yet. I told him to come at seven forty-five and,” look¬ 
ing at his watch, “it isn’t but seven fifteen—seven 
twenty.” He rose to his feet and with his napkin 
trailing went to the door. “Say,” he said to the 
dim shadow of the driver, “you’re early. Not till a 
quarter to eight. Come back in about—but wait a 
minute.—I’ll be ready in a minute.—Just wait.” And 
he turned and started up the steps, calling over his 
shoulder as he went: 

“Excuse me, Mrs. Melton. Excuse me, Mrs. Hock¬ 
er. I forgot all about-” His voice trailed off in 

the depths of the upstairs and then a door banged. 
Mrs. Melton faced about and had a few words with 
the figure on the door step. There was a rumble of a 
low, protesting voice and then Mrs. Melton closed 
the door. 

She came back in the dining room and sat down. 
And then she looked at Mrs. Hocker at the other end 
of the table and Mrs. Hocker looked at her—in silence. 
And the clock’s ticking began again. The boarder’s 
napkin hung on the back of his chair. 

At eight o’clock John Brawn came down the stairs 
once more. He was as sleek and bright as a newly 
minted coin. His overcoat hung partly open and 
through the slight gap in his muffler showed the tips of 
a high-standing collar. He wore a high silk hat, 



21 


JOHN-N 0-BRAWN 

pushed a little too far back on his head, and he was 
pulling on a pair of new white gloves with evident 
enjoyment. 

“Well, good-night, everybody,” he called as he 
descended the stairs. “Shall I take the key—or leave 
it under the rug?” 

Mrs. Melton’s voice answered something unintelli¬ 
gible from the depths of the kitchen; the lights of the 
dining room had been turned out. 

He paused at the foot of the stairs, finished off his 
glove-fitting with a click of the fastener, gazed at him¬ 
self in the hall mirror, gave a twitch to the muffler 
about his neck and stood with his hand on the door 
knob. Already he had forgotten about the key. 
“Good-night, everybody,” he called again. 

About five minutes later the car stopped before a 
dim, forbidding house that was dark save for a single 
light in the hall. Brawn got out and went up to the 
door. He rang the bell and in a moment a muffled 
figure came and opened it. He was conscious of an 
exotic scent that was foreign and bizarre and as defi¬ 
nite as a presence in the gush of warm air that came 
forth. 

“Well!” he said brightly. “Ready?—a paragon! 
—A paradox! Woman on time.—Isn’t that delight- 
ful!” 

“You’re late,” she answered in a deep, full voice. 
“Here!—Give me your hand. It’s terribly dark.” 
The door slammed. “I told Jasper to put in a new 
globe this morning.—Look out for the step—there’s 
another one when you think you’re down.” She gath¬ 
ered up her skirts and, lightly touching his arm, felt 
her way down to the paving and went with him to the 


22 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

curb. “That’s old stuff about women,” she said as he 
helped her into the car. 

She seated herself in the far corner and composed 
her wraps. Brawn came after and sat back and re¬ 
garded her. About her shoulders was a luxurious 
swathing of dark blue velvet, surmounted by a collar 
of white fox, and above that the gleam of satiny hair 
in smooth golden waves and undulations, a sparkling 
eye and the tip of a provoking nose. Before her 
stretched her feet in sleek stockings that might have 
been painted on, so flawless was their smoothness. 
New black satin slippers with high heels were propped 
against the partition. Brawn’s eyes travelled quickly. 

“Turn off the light, can’t you?” she said. “I hate 
these showcases.” 

Brawn did so. “Shall I pull down the curtains too?” 
He laughed slyly. 

“I don’t think that’s necessary—just yet,” she said 
and turned and gazed with indifference out of the 
window. “How far is this place anyway? It’s an 
unearthly hour to be starting to a party.” 

“It’s about six miles out. That’s why I said to be 
ready at eight.” 

“You said seven thirty, mon pauvre .—And I’ve 
missed my supper and angered my family and you were 
thirty minutes late.” 

“Why, Phil. I think you’re mistaken. Mrs. Wat¬ 
son said eight thirty and I thought thirty minutes 
would be enough. It’s a buffet supper you know 
and-” 

“You said seven thirty.” 

He was silent for a moment, wondering how it could 
have happened. “Got a new coat, haven’t you?” 



JOHN-NO-BRAWN 23 

She turned suddenly. ‘‘Yes.—Like it?—I struck 
Arthur for the raise yesterday. Told him if he wanted 
me to step off, I’d have to have the equipment. It’s 
this winter or never, Job. And this is the opening 
gun.” 

Her tone struck into him a silence. He was still 
bothering about the misunderstanding in the time. 
He prided himself on being exact, or rather on other 
people’s being exact. Sometimes mistakes would hap¬ 
pen. For quite a while they rolled along with neither 
saying a word. He did not like her to talk like that, 
either. And then the interior of the car began to get 
a little warm and the scent from her hair and her 
clothes began to reach him, lulling him. The soft 
purr of the wheels on the asphalt, the flicker of lights, 
the blur of shade through the window persisted in a 
soothing and monotonous fashion and Brawn settled 
back against the cushion and yielded to their impor¬ 
tuning. 

“You might say you’re sorry,” she said at length. 

“I am. I am sorry.” 

Pause. 

“Well. I guess I’ll forgive you. But you’ve no 
idea how fatal it is for an old girl to get to a party 
early.—Hard enough to keep from going stale as it 
is.—You’ll notice how all the fresh young things drift 
in so casually about twelve o’clock when all the others 
are jaded and the men rush to them just like they do 
to the bar.” 

“I’m getting tired of parties,” said Brawn. 

“What one is this—your one thousand and oneth 
night? You’re a gilded moth. Job.” 

Her manner irritated him. He probably had been 


24 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN . 

late but he did not like her scoffing tone. She had a 
bad habit that way. “Moths get caught in the flame. 
You’ll never hear of that happening to me. And be¬ 
sides that, I’m through. Last year was the last. This 
year—one or two parties just to keep people from 
getting sore and then no more. I know. This running 
about gets you nowhere. Not a thing in the world. 
And it’s time I was looking out for number one. I’ll 
be thirty next spring.” 

“Really? You sound like fifty. Well, not for me. 
When once you’re old, you’re old for life. I’m going 
to fight to the bitter end. Don’t let old man Melan¬ 
choly get you by the throat. Job.” 

He was getting even more irritated. Why had he 
let himself be talked into going to this party? He 
had thought that Phyllida might appreciate going 
but apparently she was taking it as a matter of 
course. He had told her eight o’clock. He was sure 
now. 

“Not that I’ve got any kick coming. And a lawyer 
has to keep up his social connections.—But what’s 
four or five thousand a year?” 

“A very respectful sum. Take my hat off to it any 
time. Don’t scorn the money. Job.” 

He sank back into an unhappy reverie. Came the 
sudden screeching of the brakes. “One gets pretty 
tired of law.” And then he saw that they were 
stopping before a spacious porch flooded with light. 
A broad colonial door with a brass knocker and a fan¬ 
shaped transom was in the centre foreground. The 
door opened to a glare of light and the strumming of 
string music within. 

“Well, here’s to it, Job. There’s the front,” 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 25 

she said. “I’ll forgive you utterly, Job. The thought 
of action sweeps all rancour from my heart.” 

Her tone was so natural and merry again that he 
laughed. And then he crawled past her and helped 
her alight from the cab. They went up the steps to¬ 
gether, silently—past an old darky in a dinner coat 
and a spotless white shirt. 

There was the momentary confusion of entrance. 
On the right of the spacious hall was a room ablaze 
with light and humming with people; on the left, an¬ 
other room, carpeted and dim, where a few men stood 
idly about, in vivid contrast with its antipode. As 
they crossed the hall, a man came toward them, his 
hands in his pockets. “Hello, Phil,” he said, and then 
nodded shortly to Brawn. He came and laid his hand 
gently upon the girl’s shoulder as she paused at the 
foot of the stair, thereby placing himself between 
the couple and in Brawn’s way in case the latter 
wished likewise to ascend the stairs. He wore a dinner 
coat, very trim, very modish, a low, turn-down collar, 
and his trousers were rather short. His hair was sleek 
and black and glossy and parted in the middle and not 
a strand of it was out of its most proper place. 
“You’re easy on the eyes to-night, old lady,” he said 
to the girl and held her by the elbow, preventing her 
from going on. “Hurry up and come down.—This 
was a bum steer. They were playing the funeral march 
just before you came in.” 

Brawn reached out and pushed him aside. He was 
not so tall as the intruder, but a bit stockier, and not 
nearly so comfortable-looking in his elegance. “Run 
along, Jerry,” he said. “Look after the little girls.” 

The man turned and regarded him vacuously and 


26 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

Brawn took advantage of the opportunity and sprang 
up the steps after Phil. He had barely reached the 
landing, whence the stair branched off to the right, 
when he heard a laugh, a clear, derisive laugh, and 
then Jerry called out after him: 

“Why don’t you take off your shoes, too. Brawn?” 

He paused and looked back, grinning, but not under¬ 
standing. 

Jerry stood at the bottom of the stairs. He raised 
one foot and touched it with his finger. “Look at 
yourself,” he said. 

Brawn was conscious of a number of faces in the 
hallway turning toward him, and then he glanced down 
at his foot. A disagreeable, cold shock of surprise 
struck him that was like a douche of water. Above his 
patent leather pump, right in the seam, his sock had 
let go, disclosing a long narrow slit. It was black 
treachery for he had worn it only once before. His 
face grew red with chagrin and dismay as he started 
up the stairs once more. 

“The other one, too,” Jerry called again and 
laughed. And there were other laughs, light, feathery, 
wind-blown, careless. 

Instinctively Brawn caught a look at the other foot, 
but a glance was enough and he did not expose himself 
to further ridicule. He hurried up the stair and did 
not hear his companion when she took leave of him in 
the upper hall. 




CHAPTER III 

I T WAS fifteen minutes or more before he came 
out of dry dock. The host had been sent for 
and had produced a pair of socks which were un¬ 
fortunately cotton but fortunately whole. He apolo¬ 
gized for their texture, saying that all his clothes were 
in a chiffonier in the ladies’ dressing room. But 
Brawn was not particular. He scarcely noticed them 
and pulled them over his others with a muttered curse 
at his haberdasher. 

He went out again into the upstairs hall and waited 
around the door of the ladies’ dressing room, and the 
echo of the laughter still rang in his ears, and an ugly 
little hot spot hovered about his heart. He had always 
had rough edges toward Jerry Cloud; he was always 
so obviously humorous. A shallow pate on a high 
horse! Phil did not come. He waited. She thought 
him a fool too, perhaps. He looked at his watch and 
did not see what time it was—merely looked at the 
dial. Then he went over to the banister and looked 
down. The door of the dressing room opened and 
two girls came forth, strangers to him, and he watched 
them go downstairs with that characteristic hesitating 
step and cross the floor out of his sight. Still Phil did 
not come. He looked at his watch again and then, 
with a sudden burst of anger, started down the stairs. 
When he reached the bottom, the hallway was 


27 


28 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

empty; the crowd had all gathered in the room on the 
right and something was going on in there. He caught 
a careless look around the corner of the stairs and 
then backed away. Off in a dim nook on a bit of a 
wall bench almost hidden by a potted palm, he had 
caught a glimpse of Phil’s golden head, and beside it 
and rather close, the sleek one of Jerry Cloud. Some¬ 
thing choked in his throat. 

He fancied he saw Phil make as if to rise, but he 
stepped into the ballroom, as if he had not. At the 
far end Collis Temple was showing off his shadow 
tricks against a white sheet; all heads were turned that 
way. He had no interest in shadow pictures—was 
cold to Collis Temple. 

A fairylike little creature in a simple white dress 
that was hardly more than a child’s smock came from 
the crowd and approached him, peering abstractedly 
into corners. It was Arna Joline, with her ridiculous, 
tiny feet, her golden fluff, and her look of childish per¬ 
plexity. 

She tripped across the floor. She came quite near 
him. She realized his presence with a start. “Oh! 
Hello, John.—I’ve lost my fan, I believe.—I—I’ve 

-” She caught a look around the corner of the 

door, paused and turned back. A faint shadow 
seemed to touch her face. She gave him a careful 
smile. “Have you seen Collis’s animals? The one 
of the grampus and the little boy? It’s a scream.” 
As she looked into his eyes he fancied he could see 
many things in hers—upset and self-conscious though 
he was: Arna—she with the features of a bisque doll. 
“Let’s go watch,” she said. 

He followed her dully and stood for a moment on 



29 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

i 

the edge of the crowd. Bursts of laughter and ap¬ 
plause came like crackles against his brain. Over 
a shoulder he could catch occasional glimpses of the 
grotesquely jerking shadows—hideously childish. Be¬ 
fore him was the slim form of Arna Joline, stretching 
her head and standing uncertainly on tip-toe. Every 
now and then she would turn around to him and smile 
—a vacant, woodeny smile. She had lost her fan, 
perhaps. Yes, he knew what she had lost. A year 
ago there had been an ugly scandal—just a quivering 
hot breath of scandal. A man and a girl had been 
found in an empty house way out on the Brownsboro 
Road. It was a traffic policeman or “motor cycle 
cop” who found them. Somebody like that. He 
didn’t remember. Nothing came of it. They estab¬ 
lished a perfect alibi: their car had gone dead on 
them and they were merely stopping for shelter from 
the coming rain. But it had been very late and the 
tale had been very suggestive, lingering like a bit of 
mist in the lowlands for a long time afterwards. It 
was known that the man was Jerry Cloud. And it had 
been whispered somewhere that the girl was—Arna 
Joline. But no one seemed to be sure. And Jerry 
Cloud had gone on as though nothing had happened. 
And Arna Joline still went to the parties. Only, the 
two of them were never together. She seemed to 
slip about like some fluttering white moth—uncertain 
of herself. And there was that vague way about her; 
one could not tell if she were really enjoying herself. 
She merely went all the time—round and round and 
round. And to-night she had lost her fan and forgot¬ 
ten that she had lost it. 

Brawn reached forward and lifted her gently by her 


30 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

elbows. He could hear her laugh. Then she twisted, 
seemed uncomfortable, and he let her down again. 
The picture show broke up. The crowd surged about 
them. He had lost Arna Joline. 

He walked to the front door without looking in the 
stair corner. He went out upon the porch. He pulled 
out his cigarette case, extracted a cigarette, lighted it, 
and leaned back against one of the big stone pillars, 
to enjoy himself. 

Some time later he went back indoors. They were 
dancing. He caught sight of Phyllida whirling by. 
She waved at him with her fan and he smiled back— 
like a wooden image. 

Just when they had had supper, he did not know. 
He was not hungry anyway. He smoked up nearly 
two packs of cigarettes on the big front porch and up 
and down the drive. 

He danced one short round with Phyllida but she 
said nothing and neither did he. 

When they went home, he handed her into the car 
and waited for the Warrens, a young married couple 
who had arranged to share the taxi with them. He 
could feel her looking at him from the darkness. He 
was suddenly angry and resentful that a girl of her age 
could so obviously play with fire as she did. He could 

not understand why she did it unless- And she was 

older than Cloud, most probably. Every one knew 
what sort he was. He carried his label openly—like 
a glass bottle in shipment: “Handle with care.” 

There was much merriment in the car going home, 
for the Warrens were a live young couple, and he en¬ 
joyed himself, but he knew all the time- 

When he left her at the door, she held out her hand. 




JOHN-NO-BRAWN 31 

“I don’t know what’s come over you to-night. One 
might think I had done something to you. I ought to 
be very angry with you.” 

“Yes. Perhaps you should. I’m pretty hard to get 
along with. I’m sorry. Good-night.” 

She laughed suddenly. “Sometimes you are, Job! 
Did I—have I—done anything to hurt your feelings?” 

“No,” he lied. “Only sometimes I worry about you. 
You—you need a brother.” 

“Oh ho!—Well,” and her voice went somehow 
softer, “it’s sweet to be worried about—sometimes. 
But what about. Job, my venerable?” 

“Well, never mind that.” 

She pressed his hand and let it fall. “Don’t lose 
sleep over me. Job. You need your health.—For 
your own encouragement, too, you’re an interesting 

study. I- Run along. Your meter is gasping its 

last out there.” 

“Good-night.” 

He walked soberly down the walk to the car. 



CHAPTER IV 


B rawn sat with his feet propped on the low 
window sill and rocked his swivel chair slowly 
back and forth in a short arc. There was noth¬ 
ing in prospect and the view from his office window was 
far from encouraging. A thin line of umbrellas, sleek 
as seals’ backs in the drizzle, was coming from the 
court-house door, down Jefferson Street. The sky 
was an impenetrable gray. It was a most inopportune 
day in which to come to grips with discouragement. 

The telephone rang. Slowly and sullenly he ans¬ 
wered its summons. 

“Mr. Brawn’s office?” said a voice. 

“John Brawn talking.” 

“Oh yes. Job, this is Phil.—I’m not disturbing you, 
am I?” 

“No. Not at all.” 

“Well”—a pause—“Gee!—Why don’t you say 
something?—Here! I’ll get it out of my system and 
evaporate.” There was a light, hard little resonance 
in the voice. “I just wanted to invite you to dinner. 

Hadn’t expected to be formal about it-” 

“Yes?” 

“What in the world is the matter. Job? Trouble 
hasn’t come into your life at last, has it? Or is it that 
you still-” 

Brawn laughed, a short, hard laugh. He tilted his 


32 




JOHN-NO-BRAWN 33 

head to one side and looked abstractedly at the ceiling. 
“I—a—it’s nothing.—Had my mind on my work.— 
Pardon me.” 

“Well.—r 'm relieved.—As I was saying, just want¬ 
ed you to come to dinner Friday.—Seven o’clock.” 

“Mmm,” said Brawn, slowly. “ ’Fraid I can’t. 
Fve-” 

“Job.” 

“Yes?” 

“Listen. Don’t be so inexorable. Think. Friday 
night? You know you haven’t a date.” 

A pause. “I-” 

“Don’t think you have to punish me. Job. Pm per¬ 
fectly conscious of my sins.—Seven o’clock-” 

“Pm not trying to punish you. What should I be 
punishing you for, Phil?” His tone was growing 
lighter; a smile was struggling about his mouth, but 
his eyes were uncertain. 

“There !—That’s better. Remember what Portia 
said about mercy. We’ll expect you then—seven 
o’clock.” 

Brawn laughed. “You must expect a Shylock— 
coming for a pound of flesh—and on Friday?” 

“That’s good. You’ll come then? Must hurry 
along.” There was a slight click. 

“Phil!”—“Phil!” Brawn jiggled the receiver but 
there was no reply. Slowly he pushed the phone from 
him. The smile hovered about his lips but his eyes 
were thoughtful . 

Friday night at seven fifteen. Brawn was hurrying 
up the front walk of the Coleman home. As he 
punched the bell button with a quick, nervous gesture, 





34 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

a restraining impulse came to him. He must quiet his 
mood, still the racing in his veins. He had a certain 
responsibility—a responsibility of not taking things 
too lightly. He could be pleasant and agreeable to 
the uttermost bounds of politeness but it must be defi¬ 
nitely understood that he was no catchpenny, no 
trifling bauble, to be treated lightly. But the quicken¬ 
ing of his nerves and perceptions would not thus easily 
be subdued. He caught himself listening acutely as he 
waited, so he turned in the vestibule and casually 
viewed the arc light, swinging at the street corner. He 
would not be trifled with. By no means. And then 
the door opened. 

Phyllida May stood in the doorway, and Brawn’s 
cold, calm dignity started to slip. He snatched off his 
hat. Words failed him. Phyllida, too, was silent; 
he could not see her face for the light behind her. He 
stepped into the hall, conscious, as he did so, of a most 
demoralizing flutter of his nerves. He felt that she 
was looking him over from the shadow. It was an 
unfair advantage. 

“How do you do! How do you do!” he whispered 
as he passed her, bowing with short, jerky little bows 
in cadence with his words. He walked over to a table 
and put his hat upon it. And then he turned and 
looked at her, peeling off his gloves the while. The 
light fell full on her face and burnished the gold of 
her hair. She was regarding him gravely from under 
levelled brows, a suggestion of mock seriousness about 
her mouth. 

“Well?” said Brawn. It was a pitiful striving for 
the desired mood. 

Phyllida broke into a sudden laugh and then she 


35 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

came and took him by the arm and propelled him 
toward the door across the hall. “You’ll be the death 
of me yet, Job,” she said. 

As they stepped into the parlour a man’s figure 
arose from a divan in the corner. 

“You’ve met Mr. Ambrose, Job?” 

“Howdy, John.” 

“How are you, George?” 

“Oh, I see,” said Phyllida. “Banal, as ever, aren’t 
I?” She sat down in a large armchair in the centre of 
the room while Brawn and the third party sought re¬ 
mote corners. 

There was a moment of silence, during which time 
Brawn strove to order his confused feelings, and then 
Phyllida turned to Ambrose as if in continuation of 
a past discussion: 

“But / say, George, that she had a perfect right 
to her freedom. A contract’s a contract and when it’s 
broken, it’s not.—We were discussing the Knowles,” 
she explained to Brawn.—“I said I thought Justine 
was perfectly right. Lost his mind, you know.” She 
paused and looked down at her lap and smoothed a 
ribbon end. Brawn watched her closely and wondered 
what he had been let into. He could not help feeling 
resentful at the presence of a third person and a little 
chill travelled up and down his spine. She was an en¬ 
trancing creature but one could not count on her. It 
occurred to him that he was called on to speak. 

“But,” he began, slowly—the half light was more 
bewitching on Phyllida’s hair than a bright, full one 
—“I thought she was in love with Bill Jordan?” 

Phyllida looked up quickly. “She was. And prob¬ 
ably is. But that’s beside the point. Henry Knowles 


36 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

is no longer the man she married. He went bad on 
her. The law is definite in some states, isn’t it? It 
ought to be. For my part, if my man lost his money, 
it would be cause enough for Me to leave him.” Her 
laugh tinkled off, sank to a low, musical note. 

“Phil!” interposed Brawn. “You oughtn’t to talk 
that way.” 

“And why not?” She looked up at him sharply. 

“Because—well, you don’t mean it. We’re not 
animals. Civilization has made some progress.” 

“Civilization hasn’t anything to do with it. It’s 
just common sense.” She turned to Ambrose for sup¬ 
port: “Dispassionately now—I marry a man. He 
disappears—changes—goes flooey. He’s not the man 
I married—never can be again. Where’s the idea of 
justice?—You’re not a prejudiced lawyer, George. 
Answer me. What about that?” 

Ambrose raised his beetling brows. “ ‘For richer, 
for poorer. In sickness and in health.’—That’s what 
you would have said.” He smiled at her. 

“Pouf! But suppose I weren’t married in a 
church?” 

Ambrose was silent a moment, scowling. When he 
spoke, his voice was very low. “You wouldn’t be 
married, then.” 

Phyllida flung out her hand in a protesting gesture. 
“Oh, you two! You won’t argue fairly. You take 
things for granted.” 

“One has to,” rejoined Ambrose and then he sprang 
awkwardly to his feet. 

A woman was entering the room. It was Mrs. 
Coleman. Spying Ambrose, she swept toward him 
impressively. Her manner was elaborately studied. 


37 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

She raised her eyebrows as she held out her hand. 
“Oh, how do you do?” she said, her face uptilted, her 
eyes thoughtful. It was the manner of a beautiful 
woman. 

“Here’s John Brawn, Mama,” said Phyllida. 

Mrs. Coleman turned. She caught a quick glance 
at her daughter which seemed to say, “How came all 
these people here? What is the idea?” She held 
out her hand to Brawn who bowed over it. Her 
manner faded; she seemed to become weary. Then she 
sat down in the focal chair and arranged her skirts. 
Every now and then she would glance at Ambrose, 
who sat viewing his great hands. “What were you 
talking about?” she said. “Go on, please. Don’t let 
me interrupt.” 

No one replied for the moment. Brawn from the 
far corner was gazing out with restless eyes. 

Directly Ambrose assumed the responsibility. “We 
were discussing the Knowles affair,” he explained. 
“Phil was saying that she thought marriage a contract 
and that the considerations were material. Of course 


Mrs. Coleman smiled, showing the tip of a gold 
crown. “That’s just what it is—pure and simple. If 
more of the parties to it only recognized that fact, 
there would be much less trouble. Give and take I 
One does the giving and the other the taking—or¬ 
dinarily.” 

She laid it down as a fact and Ambrose subsided. 
A reserve had settled upon the room; all seemed to 
centre on the woman in the easy chair. She sat, breath¬ 
ing audibly, her full bosom rising and falling under an 
ornate waist. One hand drummed the arm of the 



38 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

chair. The nails were glittering and pink, with long, 
pointed, white tips. The powder lay in drifts upon 
her face—along the curve of her full neck. 

Suddenly she smiled again, a flash of a smile. “Why 
I should be talking like this with my daughter in the 
room and—and possible suitors—I don’t know. I 
can’t imagine what I was thinking about.” 

Brawn stirred and Ambrose looked up, smiling 
faintly. 

Mrs. Coleman gave a wave of the hand. “Too 
much is said of that sort of thing anyway.—What is 
it the essayist said—‘Vice is a monster of such hateful 
mien’—?” 

Again a silence. Brawn from his corner was won¬ 
dering. Mrs. Coleman had not escaped the burden 
of communal conspirings. Her reputation had had 
some storms to weather. The best of her friends 
claimed that she had suffered disillusions. Her first 
husband, Edward May, Phyllida’s father, had been 
a semi-romantic figure. He had been teller in a bank 
—slim, graceful, and a beautiful dancer. The girls 
had called him, “that beautiful Ed May.” To Janet 
McBride he had been irresistible—insatiate, curious, 
groping spirit that she was. Against common sense, 
she had become Janet May and loud had been the 
whisperings and sombre the shakings of heads. Acidu¬ 
lous tongues found satisfaction in that a marriage of 
the sort was waste to neither. Before the girl had had 
time to reflect upon her action, Edward May had been 
taken from her—run down by a careless trolley car. 
All he had left was a somewhat roseate memory. And 
the gaunt problem of subsistence had bobbed up again. 

There had been a certain rugged strength in the way 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 39 

she had recognized her facts. Before the public had 
ceased being sorry for her she took definite steps for 
the feathering of her nest, a precaution made all the 
more necessary because of the inopportune arrival of 
a fledgling. A year later she married Arthur Cole¬ 
man, an assertive and colourful salesman of ladies’ 
underwear. Of course he was a social cipher and 
gauche, but he was prosperous, without question. 
Agaih tongues had wagged. Scurrilously it was whis¬ 
pered that the two of them had taken the baby 
honeymooning. Brawn, watching from his corner, 
and before whose mental eyes passed the whole scene 
again, in detail, shivered at the thought. He glanced 
at Phil, a fairy changeling in a sordid story. 

“No,” Mrs. Coleman was saying, a look of signifi¬ 
cant, arch slyness upon her bepowdered face. “I can’t 
imagine what I could be thinking about. Bachelors 
are never interested in the abstract idea of divorce. 
Only in divorcees. Phyllida, forgive me dear.” She 
gazed dreamily about the room. She seemed con¬ 
sumed with ill-repressed amusement. Ambrose looked 
up from his hands, smiled slowly at her, and settled 
back against his cushion. 

“The cynicisms of the parent need not be visited 
upon the child,” he said. “Nothing you might say, I 
fancy, would in the least impair your daughter’s 
chances.” 

Mrs. Coleman bowed. 

“Thank you, George,” Phyllida murmured. 

And Brawn, on the verge of speech, paused, mouth 
open. No one was looking his way. A quick little 
wave of envy passed over him. He was not so old, so 
well established as Ambrose. Not nearly so secure. 


40 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

The room was full of odd silences. Every one 
seemed to depend on the woman there in the centre for 
his cues. Again she broke the silence: “The Knowles 
girl—so she is really applying for her divorce?” 

“So they say,” responded Ambrose. 

“Ah well. One voulez-vousf —To be tied to an 
idiot at thirty—with ten years of youth ahead—all 
dressed up and no place to go, to use an obvious vul¬ 
garity. I don’t blame her. It seems her only insur¬ 
ance.” 

Brawn wondered how much of Phyllida’s philosophy 
had been unconscious echo. The thought of an echo 
at all, oppressed him. Mrs. Coleman was a wise, 
vulgar woman, and she did not think him worth both¬ 
ering about. 

“By the way, dearie,” she turned to her daughter. 
“Saw Jeremiah Cloud this afternoon in Presswick’s 
with a very pretty young girl. The young Butter- 
worth thing, I believe. He was treating her to a drink 
at one of those little tables in the rear and his 
eyes were just eating her up. I happened to see , 
them.” 

“Oh. Such a blow!” said Phil. 

“I knew it would be. I merely wanted to warn you. 
—Mr. Cushman, Jerry’s uncle, I see, has effected a 
merger of three or four insurance companies. ‘Merge 
and conquer.’ What financier said that?” 

“Clever head,” said Ambrose. 

“They’re all small companies,” interposed Brawn 
from his corner. “The three of them together don’t 
make one good one.” 

There was a pause after his speech—an awkward, 
frightfully silent pause. He hadn’t meant to say that 




41 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

at all. It broke a long silence from him. It sounded 
very much as if- And then they all laughed. 

“Just the same,” put in Mrs. Coleman maliciously, 
“you cannot overlook Mr. Cloud.” And they all 
laughed again with relieved gaiety. 

Just then the folding doors opened and a grinning 
face thrust itself through and remained there, a black 
mask with a double row of yellow white teeth. 

“Yes, Jasper?” said Mrs. Coleman. “Dinner is 
jServed,” she continued, appropriating the lines. And 
then she rose to her feet. 

The doors were got open somehow and the party 
filed through into a dining room that was totally dark 
save for a huge dome of vari-coloured glass that hung 
over and near the table. A little girl in a white dress 
came through the door from the hall. 

“This is Mary,” said Mrs. Coleman, putting her 
hand in momentary caress upon the child’s head. 
“My little daughter, Mary. . . . Did you have 

a nice time at the party, dear?” 

The child murmured something unintelligible and 
then slid into a chair. 

“Wait, dearie. Not before the others, dear. Mr. 
Ambrose, take this place. Mr. er—a—there. Arthur 
was called away last night. Most unexpectedly. He’d 
just come in from a long business trip and I thought 

-Pull your chair up closer to the table, sweetheart. 

I do wish he would make up his mind to go in business 
in Louisville but he says they make it so profitable for 
him.—Thank you, Mr. Brawn. Now don’t wriggle, 
sweetheart.” 

Brawn found himself directly across the table from 
Phyllida, and as she pulled up her chair she gave him 




42 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

such an understanding sort of smile that he warmed all 
over and felt quite cheery and jolly. It was a “home- 
folksey” place—no ostentation. And Phyllida, with 
her golden hair and her piquant nose and her delicate 
colouring, the soft roundness of her white arms—oh, 
well, it would be a lucky man who could hold her 
entirely—absorbingly. 

The meal started in silence and then suddenly con¬ 
versation sprang up about politics. It began as Jasper 
was dealing out the salad with his long, gingerly reach. 
“I think it’s a shame,” said Mrs. Coleman, “that you 
good Democrats don’t clean house. The Catholics 
have the party in the hollow of their hand. Why— 
they hold all the offices.” 

Phyllida and Brawn exchanged glances. 

“Why is it, Mr. Ambrose?” she continued. 

Ambrose wiped his mouth with his napkin, deliber¬ 
ately spread it in his lap and then looked across the 
table at his hostess. “I don’t know, Mrs. Coleman. 
I didn’t realize it.—I’m a Catholic, you know.” 

Brawn rose on whirring wings; his heart warmed 
to the necessity that was calling him. “They’re the 
only people who seem to take sufficient interest, Mrs. 
Coleman.” 

Mrs. Coleman raised her eyebrows in comic dismay. 
She laid her hand across her mouth and looked over 
it at Ambrose. “My, oh my,” she ventured at length 
in muffled tones. “What can be coming over you, 
Jennie?—Oh, there is no excuse for me whatever.— 
There’s nothing I can say, Mr. Ambrose, except that 
there was nothing personal intended. Absolutely noth¬ 
ing. I can’t think what-” 

Ambrose laughed graciously. “Perhaps not an idle 



JOHN-NO-BRAWN 43 

truth at that, Mrs. Coleman. Where there’s smoke 
there’s fire. You wouldn’t be noticing it, if there 
weren’t some truth in the observation.—And you’re 
right in a way, too. Brawn.” 

Brawn caught a quick look at his hostess. He could 
not fathom her. Some people said she was a light 
woman. But she had poise; she did not seem the 
least disturbed. Already her mind seemed elsewhere. 
She apparently had no feeling about her “break” at 
all. 

Phyllida arose. “Let’s have our coffee in the sitting 
room,” she said. 

And they all filed back through the double doors 
again. 

Mrs. Coleman paused in the doorway. Again that 
distraught manner. “You’ll pardon me, I trust. I’ve 
some letters that have just got to be answered.—Phil, 
dear, I can count on you to entertain the gentlemen?” 

The gentlemen murmured faint protest. 

“Good-night.” She seemed to address Ambrose 
solely. 

They sat down. To Brawn’s delight, Phyllida came 
and sat beside him on the divan in the corner. He 
had speciously plotted to secure it. 

The light was warm and red in the sitting room and 
there were entrancing shadows. Dim lights are like 
tact; Phyllida had made the most of the idea in her 
mother’s house. Equidistant from the four walls was 
a table, passably plain. In the middle of the wall op¬ 
posite the door and beside which stood the divan was 
a cabinet mantel with an inlay of mottled green tiles 
and much brass scroll work. There was no way to hide 
it. Over in the far corner by the door was an ancient 


44 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

upright piano that insidiously gathered dust. Its voice 
was gone but it added tone to the room, in the opinion 
of Mrs. Coleman. Three mongrel chairs filled the 
empty corners. 

In one of these sat Ambrose. He seemed to have 
shrunk into his collar, though his broad shoulders 
humped out and his legs were sprawling. Ambrose 
was a solid sort of man that one accepted without 
consideration. He was district representative for a 
large bottle-manufacturing plant, was on good terms 
with the liquor interests and played politics unosten¬ 
tatiously. On this occasion he seemed a bit self- 
contained. 

“I neglected to give Mama her cues, George,” Phyl- 
lida began when they were all settled again. 

Ambrose grinned. But somehow, the sparkle in her 
tone did not prove warming and a long silence settled 
and persisted. Conversation would lift a languid head 
and die away again. Brawn was quite content to leave 
things as they were. He was turning over his practical 
problems and possibilities in a sort of warm, mental 
haze. 

Directly, Ambrose stood up to go. “I told you,” 
he said to Phyllida, “I’d have to eat and run. I’m 
sorry. It’s cosy in here. But I’ve a pressing business 
engagement.” 

Brawn had an indistinct impression of his leaving, 
but he was acutely aware of Phyllida’s return to the 
divan. 

“George is a dear,” she began as she snuggled back 
in a corner among the cushions. “But there isn’t any 
kick in having him around, somehow.” 

“You’re not giving me an inside tip, are you?” 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 45 

suggested Brawn, for the moment pleased with him¬ 
self. 

She did not seem to have heard him, but leaned back 
with her hands behind her head and looked dreamily 
at him. The lines of her body, the gentle curve of her 
throat, the sweep of the arms—were very graceful. 

“I didn’t know you knew Ambrose,” he said after 
a bit. 

She started, smiled from her reverie. “Oh, ages.” 

Brawn frowned. “Fine chap. Solid. Substantial. 
Makes a lot of money. Can’t understand, though, 
why he goes to all the parties. Along with all those 
doddering relics like Mason and Stout and Doc 
Spencer.” He laughed unpleasantly. “I’m a great 
one to talk. Go myself. Every chance. And I’m old 
enough to know better.” 

“Your age seems to be bothering you a lot these 
days, Job.” 

“It ought to. When I look at Ambrose.” 

“That’s not nice.” 

“Oh, I don’t mean that. When I see how far he’s 
gotten, I mean.” 

“Why. Has he gotten so far?” 

“Far enough. I’d swap incomes with him.” He 
was slowly flicking at his foot with a piece of string 
which he had picked up on the hearth. 

“Since when have you adopted that standard?” 

He looked up quickly. “Oh, some time ago. I’ve 
just decided that all boys make the same mistake. 
Come to the city with high ideals and a lot to work 
for. And they end up by going frankly after the 
mazuma.” 

“You sound bitter.” 


46 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

“Not at all. It’s funny, that’s all—when I remem¬ 
ber how I came to Louisville and took up the practice 
of law; and what fine hatred I had in my heart for the 
ambulance chasers, poor devils. And I thought that 
mere brains and eloquence would blaze a way for me. 
Why, do you know,” he went on, frankly reminiscent, 
“that I had two medals for oratory from Centre?” 

“Did you now. Job ?” 

“Yeah. And one of them, the last one, I got in a 
most terrible—after a most terrible experience.” 

“No?” 

“I’ve never told anybody. They used to try to kid 
me about it. It was at commencement. I had a 
rattling good speech. But I forgot it. Right in the 
middle I forgot it. For the life of me I could not 
remember. I was so sure of it I had not brought my 
manuscript. Right up in the air, I was. Somebody 
laughed, Lack in the hall. Drove everything right out 
of my head worse than ever. So I got down off the 
stage and went home.” 

Phyllida laughed. “Those were the days. Didn’t 
you stay for your diploma?” 

“Surely I did. I came back. But I got that speech 
first. And they let me start all over. I finished it that 
time.” 

“That was stubborn of you. Poor audience! Those 
commencement speeches are hard to bear.” 

“I know. But that isn’t all. I won. They gave 
me the medal. Sorry for me, I guess.” 

The lightsome, eerie expression on Phyllida’s face 
changed. “Oh,” she said. “Why, that's fine.—I 
didn’t know that. Job. I hadn’t heard that one.” 

He seemed to disregard her. “It doesn’t matter. 



JOHN-NO-BRAWN 47 

What does matter is—I'm changed. The world’s not 
that sort of a place. There’s nothing worth while 
taking that much trouble for—except money. And 
somehow I can’t work up much of a fever over that. 
Haven’t got enough.” 

“Oooeee, but you’re low. If I had anything in the 
house I’d give you a drink. Just to save your life. 
Let’s see. Is there-” 

“Oh, don’t bother. I’m not low at all. Just dis¬ 
illusioned.” 

“Gone to pieces. All—all to pieces.” 

“It’s a fact. I’m not low at all. Rather philosophi¬ 
cal about it. This thing about personal economic 
freedom is all bunk.” 

“I don’t get the ‘personal economic freedom.’ ” 

“Well, that’s something else. But this fellow Am¬ 
brose is all right. Stick to him. He’s got the right 
idea.’^ 

“I’ve no desire to stick to him. Job, you’re a 
scream. What’s gotten into you to-night?” 

“Nothing at all. I was just merely saying that 
Ambrose had the right idea. He’s in it for what he 
gets out of it. And he gets it out. Now take me, 
on the other hand-” 

“Listen, Job.” She laid a warm hand on his arm. 
“Don’t get to chasing your tail around in a circle. 
Snap out of it. You know, well as I know, that there 
are ideals in the world. If there weren’t, it would be 
no place to live in. You’re talking to hear yourself 
talk.” 

“I don’t know if I am. How about you? All that 
stuff about divorce. Not so much ideals in something 
I heard some one say awhile back.” 





48 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

“Perhaps I was relieving pressure too.” 

“I don’t know. Well, Ambrose is a good scout. 
He’s got the right idea. Any girl would be justified 
in talking up to him.” 

“Job, you make me laugh.” 

“Come on. Let’s go somewhere. I’ve got an itch¬ 
ing heel.” 

“I can’t. Job. Sit still and calm yourself.” 

He laughed. He leaned back against the cushion of 
the divan and looked at her. “Well, Ambrose is a 
good sort. Lots better than some I know.” 

She made no reply but seemed to be turning over 
something in her mind. Suddenly he realized how 
good it was to talk to her, and then he remembered 
that she had not treated him just right. He would 
tell her about that sometime. Not now, but some¬ 
time. He was very comfortable. Perhaps he had been 
wrong about that other night: it had not been her 
fault. After all, it wasn’t much that she had done. 
Just her careless, friendly manner of being nice to 
every one. He came to a sudden resolve. 

“Phil,” he began, frowning and just barely touch¬ 
ing her arm. “There’s something I want to say to 
you.” He might as well speak out his mind about it— 
a girl had to have some one to tell her whom not to go 
with. She couldn’t know herself—always. But it was 
a pretty hard thing to do. He paused again, irreso¬ 
lute. Her eyes looked into his, brightly and with a 
curious veiled expression. “It’s not the easiest thing to 
say-” 

Just then the doorbell rang. 

Phyllida sprang to her feet. “Just a minute, Job’. 
Jasper has gone, I know.” And she reached over 



JOHN-NO-BRAWN 49 

and touched him lightly on the arm and then ran from 
the room. 

Brawn awaited her return eagerly. He heard the 
door open and then he heard a vigorous voice and then 
a loud laugh. It jarred on him. He wondered who 
it could be. 

And then Phyllida returned and behind her, rubbing 
his hands together, came Jerry Cloud. He was wear¬ 
ing a close-fitting Norfolk jacket and a soft shirt with 
a soft collar attached, and he looked, as he always 
looked, entirely fresh and smooth and clean. A hard 
little lump came in Brawn’s throat as he rose to his 
feet. 

“Hello, Brawn,” Jerry called out indifferently. 

Phyllida seated herself in the chair by the table 
and Cloud drew up another chair, quite close to hers 
and leaned over facing her, his elbows on his knees. 
Brawn resumed his seat on the divan. 

“Got a car outside,” began Cloud to Phyllida. 
“Uncle John loosened up this evening and let me have 
it. C’mon. Let’s take a ride. Might never have an¬ 
other chance.” He had a whimsical, confiding way, 
and accompanied his bald suggestion with frequent 
jerks of the head in the direction of the street. Jerry 
Cloud was thought by many to be a wit; to others, less 
smartly fashionable, he was merely rude. He rarely 
shrank from anything in the cause of discretion. 

Phyllida laughed and then she frowned and pushed 
him aside, out of the line of vision toward Brawn. 
“Behave yourself, Jerry.” 

Jerry gave ground just a little and then he jerked 
his head over in Brawn’s direction. “Bring your 
steady along. I’m broad-minded. Maybe we can push 


50 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

him out somewhere in a dark road.” He turned and 
grinned at Brawn and Brawn simpered. 

Brawn was furious. “Don’t mind me,” he said. 
“Far be it from me to slow down your speed. Maybe 
you’ll get ambitious and amount to something.” 

“Ouch!” said Jerry and Phyllida looked at Brawn 
queerly. 

“Hush up, you two,” she said. “Don’t be so fresh 
with each other. Jerry, push your chair back and be 
quiet.” 

“I don’t wanna be quiet. I wanna be wild,” he 
complained. 

And then it came to Brawn like a flash that Cloud 
would not be calling unless he had been told he might. 
Even he would not have the nerve. And if he were, 
then that would imply an understanding that he was a 
privileged person. It was a clear case. He had been 
right some days ago and had weakly yielded against 
his cooler judgment. He would not be a doormat. 

Fie slowly arose to his feet. He smiled gravely at 
Phyllida and there was a hurt look in his eyes. “I 
really must be going,” he began, lamely. “I’ve a 
case up for to-morrow and I haven’t half prepared it,” 
he said. He could feel Cloud’s cool, insolent inspec¬ 
tion but he did not venture a look at him. 

Phyllida did not reply at once and when she did her 
voice sounded rather high and fine and a bit uncertain. 
“Your work certainly ties you down. Job.” 

He went quietly out into the hall and picked up his 
hat and his coat and his gloves from the table, throw¬ 
ing the coat over his arm. And then he turned to 
the front door. Phyllida’s form was outlined in the 
sitting-room doorway and she was looking at him. 


JOHN-N 0 -BRAWN 51 

As he opened the front door, she held out her hand 
to him and looked him squarely in the eyes. “You 
needn’t have done this,” she said. 

Something choked in his throat and there was a hot 
stinging in his eyes. The warmth of her seemed to 
irradiate out toward him, alluring, almost overpower¬ 
ing, and yet a sharp little spiteful resentment pushed it 
back in his consciousness. “I’m sorry,” he replied 
shortly. 

He walked out the door and down the steps and 
from the yellow square of light on the pavement, knew 
that she was watching, and he went blindly on to the 
sidewalk and paused before deciding which way he 
would go. And then the door closed coldly, shutting 
off the light. 


CHAPTER V 


HE fall and winter of nineteen sixteen have 
been described as a quickening prelude. A 
fever was mounting in the hearts and minds 
of people. There was a ruthless sweeping forward 
to something, but to John Brawn it was an ugly period 
of stagnant calm. Society had unwittingly girded up 
its loins for one last desperate fling before its impend¬ 
ing and unsuspected moratorium. The season opened 
with a bang in November with a series of three elabor¬ 
ate balls. Brawn had firmly decided that he was 
“through with all that sort of thing.” The first 
dance came on Friday night, November the twentieth. 
Brawn was obdurate. He had no fresh white gloves. 
His ties and collars had acquired a slight discolour. 
He slipped into his dressing gown at about seven thirty, 
lighted a cigar and got out one of Mary Johnston’s 
novels to read. He sat with his feet propped on the 
marble-topped washstand, leaning far back in his 
rocker, and let the fragrant smoke curl upward into 
the inverted shade of the light. 

As he settled back into his chair he felt a complacent 
sort of satisfaction that he was doing the sensible 
thing. He had been intending to break off for the past 
three years. Now that he had done it he felt immeas¬ 
urably older, more settled, more worth while. For a 
fleeting moment he envisioned the glitter, the chaff. 



53 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

the swing of the party that would soon be starting. 
Just like an eddy of gay autumn leaves it would be, 
stirred by a rising breeze—feathery, powdery, empty. 
Such parties had been to him a sort of stimulus; 
they lit up his nervous system so that its flares 
consumed the husks of his daily depression. He could 
not explain it in his coldly rational moments. Some of 
the men who frequented these affairs needed the back¬ 
ing of three or four drinks before they could have a 
good time. Brawn could not understand that. The 
jingle he got from a party was not the sodden sort of 
thing one gets from drink—he always thought of 
drinking as “sodden”—and he could not understand 
why some wished to mix their indulgences. It seemed 
wasteful and the height of ill-taste. Brawn had not 
been swept into the widening whirlpool then in vogue. 
He even admitted the existence of social obligations. 
And then he turned over the first page of the novel and 
tried to remember what it had told him by way of 
introduction. 

Directly he got into the swing of the story and set¬ 
tled comfortably into his chair. The light blazed 
unwinkingly down, the blue smoke curled lazily up and 
the room lay dozing in the haze. He read on, getting 
vaguely the import of the opening chapter. Once or 
twice he felt that romance was calling him, but some¬ 
thing was ticking away somewhere in the back of his 
head like a clock on a sleepless night and it kept calling 
him back from self-forgetfulness. The ashes of his 
cigar became of a sudden incredibly long. He got up, 
stepped over to the wash bowl and flicked them into it. 
And then he realized how alone he was. He saw how 
the room lay in varying shades of emptiness; the glar- 


54 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

ing patch beneath the light, the quieter gray over as 
far as the edge of the bed, and lustreless shadow be¬ 
yond. It was a desolate place for a cultured man to 
live in. He had never lived in the room before, merely 
slept there and dressed for the evening. Why hadn’t 
he noticed it? It was the very symbol of his failure. 
He walked back to the chair and stared at the book, 
lying face downward upon the seat. He frowned at 
it. He looked about the room. The curtains were 
down from the windows; Mrs. Melton was having 
them washed. There was no cloth on the wash-stand 
top. Ashes were strewn on the edge of the little 
table by the door. The bed was rumpled. In a cor¬ 
ner lay his underwear where he had thrown it just 
before he had bathed. It was unlovely. 

He sat down on the edge of the bed and stared at 
the chair. What was he going to do? He was getting 
nowhere, absolutely nowhere. Each month it was a 
desperate struggle, paying as many bills as possible 
and staving off the other creditors for another month. 
He was like the donkey with the cabbage head hung 
from a stick between his ears. The cabbage head was 
financial security. And he was just beginning to see 
that it never did any good just to run after it. One 
had to sneak up on it in a roundabout fashion. His law 
practice was not so bad; there was many an older law¬ 
yer who would have been glad to have it. But it was 
certain he was not getting any of the benefit of his fees. 
Look at the room! 

He walked over and picked up his underwear, held 
it gingerly for a moment, and then chucked it behind 
the door. He then smoothed from the bed covers the 
imprint of his body. They were futile impulses and the 


55 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

satisfaction spent itself with the doing. The tall un¬ 
curtained windows were as gaunt and unashamed as 
naked old hags, with their folding wooden shutters 
and their bare curtain rods like scrawny bones. He 
was sorry he had not let Phyllida make him those flim¬ 
sy curtains when she had offered. Phyllida had a 
clever way of adjusting things, fixing things up. She 
would be an inspiration to some man; there would be 
no dull moments for him. Well, he was free. There 
were no strings of obligations clinging to him. It 
made no difference when he went out or when he came 
in, or how he spent his time or whom he went with. 
There was nothing to prevent his single-tracking on the 
law. He tossed Mary Johnston’s conscientious effort 
over on the bed and sat down in the chair. He leaned 
his head back against the head rest and gave himself 
up to his freedom. It would be Law and nothing else. 
Two hours a night for a year would make him a quali¬ 
fied expert on something. The average lawyer never 
did any studying, merely relied on what his daily ex¬ 
perience and his routine cases brought him. Abstract 
study was an Arcadia. Unfortunately there were no 
books in the house that he could start on. He decided 
that he would bring some home on the morrow. And 
then, with this question settled—he had the feeling that 
he had come a long way down the road of decision— 
he wondered what he was going to do with the balance 
of the evening. 

He stood up. He looked at his cigar and realized 
that it was about smoked out. He remembered that he 
had no more in his coat pocket. And then pleasantly 
he realized that he might go to the drugstore for a 
fresh supply. The walk would do him good, clear out 


56 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

the fog from his brain. He put on his collar and tie, 
briskly, satisfied that he had something definite to do. 
He smoothed his hair before the glass, slipped on his 
coat, and went softly down the stairs. He did not 
want to disturb Mrs. Melton. The good soul had 
seemed so surprised when he had told her he was 
staying in. He did not want to explain that he was 
merely going to the drugstore. So he closed the front 
door quietly behind him and hurried down the walk 
to the street. 

The night air felt so good, filling his lungs, that 
he decided that he would not just go to the corner drug¬ 
store. They did not have as good a stock of tobacco 
anyway. Fourth Street was only a block or two far¬ 
ther. He would go around the block and stop -half 
way on his detour for the desired cigars. He stepped 
off quite briskly and went swinging along. Through 
the thinning branches the stars twinkled, crisp and 
bright. Lights glowed like rosy beacons in the win¬ 
dows as he passed and he occasionally caught sight of 
some contented stay-at-home, with spectacles and a 
book and an apparent immunity to the endemic social 
fever. Brawn caught the point of view and was en¬ 
tirely sympathetic. His errand was a domestic sort 
of errand—getting cigars from the drugstore. There 
were no haste and hurry and scramble in that; he 
enjoyed the relaxation of the idea. He had been 
burning his candle at both ends and it was sensible to 
snuff one of the flames out entirely. 

There was the usual congress of drugstore pilgrims 
clustered about the door as Brawn entered. He edged 
his way through, conscious of the gleam of a white 
shirt front and the clinging, disturbing odour of hair 


57 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

tonic. It was the younger crowd in preliminary assem¬ 
bly before its social onslaught and the looks that it 
gave Brawn were tolerantly superior and indifferent. 
He immediately knew that he had put on a soiled 
collar and that he had not shaved. And his manner 
with the clerk as he selected his cigars was a bit 
subdued and reflective and he failed to sound out the 
boy’s mentality, as was his usual custom. He was 
ordinarily a great student of character. 

He clipped off the end of one of the cigars, lighted 
it, and then made his way circuitously to the door. 
These youngsters vaguely disturbed him. They were 
not noisy, nor presumptuous, but it was most evident 
that they felt their superiority, were entirely sure of 
themselves. They had draped themselves about the 
drugstore so that it was impossible to avoid them. 
There were two by the door, one by the cigar stand, 
two sat on stools before the soda fountain, and two 
more were leaning on the notion case with great disre¬ 
gard for the tensile strength of the glass. Though 
they had not patronized Mr. Benedict, the druggist, 
otherwise than by using his alcohol torch to light their 
cigarettes, yet one shrank from disturbing them, from 
intruding on their charmed circle just to purchase a few 
drab sundries. Brawn hesitated, then broke through 
and gained the street. 

He wondered at the softness of the air. Vaguely 
restless, he shrank from the thought of returning 
home, leaving this suggestive outdoors. Unconscious¬ 
ly he had absorbed some of the life philosophy of the 
drugstore crowd, in that very brief peripatetic contact. 
He was not just ready for slippers and a fire. He had 
never plunged into the realities of life; for this reason 


58 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

he was so irresistibly drawn by its flame. A moth 
never leaves a lamp with a glass chimney. Along the 
street in the next block stretched a black line of motors. 
Every now and then would come another, feeling its 
W’ay, searching for a scanty anchorage by the curb, its 
lights groping, mechanical fashion. There was a faint 
stirring in the air, a mingling of doors slamming, a 
scraping, a hum of voices and a laugh, and the sudden 
welling of string music somewhere through an opening 
door, then swallowed up in the general murmur. The 
smoke from the cigar was very fragrant, and then 
there came a street car, rushing past with its whirring 
roar, its windows open as for mid-summer, and the 
bare branches on the tree just above Brawn’s head 
gave themselves up to a rattling protest. Brawn turned 
face about and started to walk north on Fourth Street. 
The stars smiled faintly very high in the heavens and 
between them and Fourth Street drifted an almost in¬ 
visible vapour screen, suggesting that somewhere be¬ 
tween a nomad wind was passing. 

In some way Brawn felt that his depression had 
quite lifted. A calm had settled over his spirit. He 
had health and work and training. If he had no more, 
if romance and love and glamour were not to be his 
portion—^well, he was no worse off than millions of 
others. He was no weakling to cry because, in the 
order of things, he was not to be given all the stan¬ 
dard equipment a standard person was supposed to 
have in making the trip through life. He crossed the 
street and, passing the first of the series of motors, 
gazed into its forbidding depths. It seemed to him a 
faithful, waiting, serving thing. Some day perhaps 
he would show Phil what a really good friend he was. 


59 


JOHN-N 0-BRAWN 

He passed another motor and another—all waiting. 
They seemed detached symbols of another life. And 
as he walked along their silent ranks his senses quick¬ 
ened and his curiosity roused itself. He slipped 
through and crossed the street the better to see, as he 
passed, what sort of party they were “throwing.” A 
door slammed and a couple crossed the pavement in 
front of him, the girl with her cloak plucked up about 
her, stepping gingerly. The broad low vestibule 
aflood with light yawned like a cheery cavern and there 
was a sucking noise of the big front door as it swung 
open and shut and then open and shut again. Through 
the filmy curtains he could see a shuttle-passing of 
brilliant forms, swaying, pausing, and then sweeping 
on. Brawn would have liked to stand there watching, 
but of course that was out of the question. So he 
merely slowed his steps. The arriving couple mounted 
to the vestibule and moved across it before him, the 
man reaching out his hand for the door, which simul¬ 
taneously swung out to meet him, impelled from within. 
And in the dazzling light Brawn recognized the soft 
gleam of a blue velvet cloak with a deep collar of 
white fox, and, below, a pair of very slender ankles 
and black, satiny pumps. Even as he doubted, the girl 
turned her head and laughingly called out something 
over her shoulder to her companion. And he saw that 
it was, without question, Phyllida. The door closed 
and then the man came back down the steps, probably 
after something left in the car. Brawn slipped into the 
shadow as the man passed before him across the pave¬ 
ment and he saw that it was George Ambrose. The 
latter walked past him up the pavement, calling out a 
name, and when he had passed, Brawn stepped across 


6o 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

the bright, revealing stretch of pavement before the 
entrance and hurried on. 

On he walked, passing block after block apparently 
oblivious of their passing. He came to Broadway and 
crossed that Rubicon into a frank night life. The 
blazing windows, the pressing crowds, claimed him 
no more than had the dark stretches of uninhabited 
shade. But when he came to Walnut Street he seemed 
to come to some decision. He turned aside and gazed 
into a jeweller’s window at a velvet tray studded 
with brilliant sparkles. He gazed intently at the tray 
and smiled softly. His coherent thought was: “They’ll 
hold on like grim death, every time. You can’t jar them 
loose.” And then he started counting up and was sur¬ 
prised to find that even after careful recollection it had 
only been three years since Phyllida’s debut party. 

And feeling cynically wise and a bit weary of body, 
he crossed the street and went into the club. 

He walked into the reading room which was bright 
but deserted. He sat down in a deep leather chair by a 
long table and picked up a magazine which he opened 
and made some show of reading. It proved to be quite 
dull so he discarded it and picked up another. This 
second one was no better than the first and he let his 
legs slip out before him and his head loll back against 
the cushion. He wondered if Phyllida was going to 
marry George Ambrose. There was something amus¬ 
ing in the thought, a tinge of tolerant bitterness. Am¬ 
brose was a man to be married. And then he read a 
little. 

Voices sounded in the hall. He looked above his 
magazine and saw two men come strolling toward 
him from the reading room. They were Larry Burton 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 6i 

and Stew Wells, part of the froth about the city’s 
social brim—soonest tasted and soonest forgotten. 
Brawn resumed his reading. 

The men came over to a divan just across the room 
from Brawn’s chair and sat down. Burton was deep 
in some story he was telling and every now and then 
he would be interrupted by a laugh from Wells. His 
voice was low but the room was unusually still and 
while Brawn tried to focus his attention on his book, 
he could not help hearing the most of what Burton was 
telling. Without having to search back for the threads 
of the story Brawn could tell the tone of it, knew it for 
some personal reminiscence with colourful possibilities. 
Burton bored him to extinction. He yawned and 
rattled a page as he turned it over. The voice sank a 
bit lower, but he could still hear what the man was 
saying. And in spite of himself he caught himself 
listening. 

There came a pause. Burton leaned back against 
the cushion and fatuously blew smoke rings at the ceil¬ 
ing. Brawn caught a quick glimpse of them over 
his magazine. He yawned again. 

“Yeah,” said Burton, laughing softly. “I thought 
so too.—But you never can tell.—Listen”—his voice 
dropped still lower—“you can count on old Jerry’s 
makin’ mighty few mistakes. Where there’s smoke, 
there’s fire-” 

Then came an unintelligible comment from Wells. 

“Hell, no. He doesn’t want to marry her. Hasn’t 
any money. They don’t pin that birdie down.—Fami¬ 
ly’s as common as dirt, too.—But, boy I—She could 

put her shoes-” he turned away his head and the 

rest was lost in a jumble. 




62 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

Brawn was angry when he first began to listen. He 
needed a vent, a stop-gap for his feelings anyway, and 
Burton and Wells had always irritated him. Here was 
a salacious bit of gossip starting. It was nothing to 
him, nothing in his young life, but a remnant of real 
chivalry clung to his make up. And then he caught 
the “Family’s as common as dirt too,” and then the 
rest of it. There came a cold spot in the pit of his 
stomach. He threw the magazine over on the table 
and rose to his feet. As he did so the eyes of the two 
turned to him. 

He stood there, pulling down his coat in the back, 
away from his collar, and spoke in a thin, low voice: 

“Don’t sling your mud around so free and easy. 
Burton. There’s some decent people might object to 
it, you know—though I haven’t an idea to whom you 
refer, even if I did overhear what you said about 
them.” 

Burton’s face flamed. “What the hell is it to you?” 
He made as if to rise, but Brawn had turned on his 
heel and was walking slowly out the door. So Burton 
sat back again. “Damn lily-dip,” he laughed shortly 

to Wells. “As I was saying-” And then he 

looked toward the door whence Brawn had disap¬ 
peared. “Ha ha!—I wonder-” and then he poked 

Wells in the ribs and was overcome with mirth. 

Brawn strolled down the hall, his whole being in a 
tingle. Every square inch of his body was blushing. 
Later, when he had to pass the library door again, 
he might come face to face with Burton. Just what 
w'ould he do then? Of course Burton had no “guts” 
but that made no difference. That wasn’t the trouble. 
Although he had a natural, deep-seated aversion to 




JOHN-NO-BRAWN 63 

brawls and bickerings, it was not the possibility of 
such that now seemed so distasteful to him. 

He paused at the doorway leading into the bar and 
looked in. Two men stood at the far end, in the 
corner, hunched over their glasses, talking in low tones. 
No, there wasn’t any use in his getting anything to 
drink. At the same time he craved one. He stood 
watching the white-aproned bar keeper shake up some¬ 
thing in a glass. He had told Burton he had no idea 
of whom Burton was talking. But he had. He knew 
perfectly well. And part of it was perfectly true. 
The rest of it was outrageous. But the minute men 

began talking, well- It was as if a lot of strange 

people had come upon him dressing. He wanted to 
fight; he wanted to run away and hide; he didn’t know 
what he wanted to do. He was trembling all over. 
He went to the cloak room and got his hat and then 
he hurried from the club, out into the night. 



CHAPTER VI 


B urton apologized a few days later. There 
was a deep frown between his eyes and he 
seemed genuinely troubled. Brawn was embar¬ 
rassed for a moment and then inclined to warm a bit. 
But the new aloofness that had of late been ruling him 
seized him again and he dropped Burton’s hand and 
laughed shortly: “No coal out of my cellar, Burton.” 

Burton thereupon looked surprised, seemed on the 
point of speaking further, and then took his leave. 
It was in the wash-room of the club and there was not 
the utmost privacy. And so the affair was thus appar¬ 
ently forgotten. 

On November the twenty-third there was another 
ball. Without much self-analysis, with absolutely 
nothing of premeditation. Brawn went. At the last 
minute something urged him that was very like the 
old pressure. He felt that he had to do something. 

The party was in full blast when he arrived, and he 
lingered on the periphery of the whirlpool, and gazed 
fatuously into its depths. His consciousness felt 
blurred to it, but there was a high-keyed jangle to his 
nerves. Pretty young girls, pink-tipped with sophisti¬ 
cation, smiled vacantly at him, seeing no one. They 
made absolutely no response to his pleasantries; merely 
gazed dreamily past him as he spoke. His vernacular 
was obsolete. There is nothing like society life in the 

64 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 65 

rigour of its demands. There is nothing perennial in 
it unless it be its constant change. What is fresh 
for it to-day is unspeakably stale to-morrow. Some¬ 
how, in the interval of one season, the entire outlook 
had altered. Curiosity and excitement were written 
on the young faces rather than frank, joyous pleasure 
and Brawn felt singularly like a discredited antique. 
His own friends were at home—in bed, where he 
ought to be. 

He would have denied any expectation of it, but 
Phyllida did not show up. Nor did Ambrose. So at 
eleven thirty. Brawn gave up the unequal struggle 
and left the field to youth. Reaching home he decided 
that the world had gone on without him. 

Christmas came and went, a phantom convention. 
Then he fell in with an odd coterie. Three women, 
philosophically resigned to the futility of the flesh pots 
and with a voluntary urge toward the smartly cultural, 
welcomed him to their midst. They were not ancient 
women, nor women whom the fiery spirit of revolt had 
warped past all semblance to their sex. But they rose 
to subtler bait—or so they assured themselves and 
implied to Brawn. Under a pseudonym one of them 
had sold a pungently feeling and convincing “spinster” 
essay to the Atlantic Monthly and had never got over 
having qualms lest she be discovered. 

Two of them lived in a small down-town apartment; 
the third was a drifter from the boarding house dis¬ 
trict. To the former place Brawn frequently gravi¬ 
tated. They lulled his suspicious unease; they drew 
him out with timely tid-bits of general and local gossip; 
they kept him going down conversational lanes that 
w'ere wide and comfortable and required no technical 


66 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

dredging or levelling. And they missed no chance of 
showing him how grateful they were for his attention. 
And with three in the crowd it was like shooting at a 
covey of partridges: one rarely hits unless he picks out 
his bird. 

One woman was an under librarian; another sold 
lumber—took phone orders—for a pleasant but in¬ 
ebriate darling of society; and the third bought corsets 
for one of the big department stores. It was surpris¬ 
ing, the variety of information these women picked up. 
They kept Brawn on his toes. 

January passed rather quietly. After the final 
flurry of bills, Brawn experienced a most agreeable 
shock in the conviction that he had gained some ground, 
pecuniarily. And he was being appreciated. He began 
to take more interest in his work. He began to read at 
night, not every night, but frequently enough to set 
himself a sort of schedule which he occasionally upset. 
It made him feel quite righteous. People began to 
come to his office: grocers with small collections and 
small contractors with their misunderstandings. He 
had a real-estate transaction or two. He shared a 
waiting room with three other lawyers; his private 
office was his own. It was getting to be a common 
thing for him to find some woman with a shawl, some 
man with frayed cuffs and twirling his hat between 
thumb and forefinger and looking disconsolate and 
uncomfortable upon the stiffest of chairs—all waiting 
for his return. He found that he was going out less 
at night. He even misplaced his engagement book and 
did not bother to get another. And there was a little 
money to his credit in the bank. 

One day, early in March, he had a visit from, his 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 67 

I 

friend Temcy Goins. Temcy had come from Shelby 
County several years before. Temcy was a coloured 
preacher. In other times and in other surroundings, 
he would have been a soldier of fortune or a mission¬ 
ary or a crook. He craved self-expression. So he 
rented the first floor of a ramshackle building, put in 
a few benches, and proceeded to exhort a flock. He 
preached a gospel. The gospel was an ornate mixture 
of Moses, St. Paul, and Temcy Goins. 

“How goes it with you, Temcy?” 

Temcy hung his head. His humid eyes were melan¬ 
choly. “Po’ly, Mist’ John.” 

“How’s that?—Business is picking up. Things been 
fine with me.” 

Temcy raised his eyes and squinted cannily. “Is 
you ever notice ’at w’en times is good fo’ de lawyeh, 
dat hit slim pickin’s fo’ Jesus?” 

“I hope you’re mistaken, Temcy. But what can I 
do for you?” 

“Well, Mist’ John. Hit a ticklish bisnis.” He 
frowned and hitched his chair nearer and began to tap 
with his forefinger upon the desk. “I ain’ aim to do 
nothin’ final. I ain’ sho’ what I really does want to 
do. Mist’ John. Ef a man set aside his wife, kin’ he 
pick her up agin’ soon’s he fin’s she done profit by de 
experience ?” 

Brawn composed his face. “What’s the trouble be¬ 
tween you and Amanthus, now, Temcy?” 

“Dey ain’ no trubbel. You see, ’Manthus got fool 
notions. She think dat no preacher’s wife got enny 
bisnis takin’ in wash. An’ she say so. And I say she 
ain’ got no bisnis doin’ anything else. Mist’ John, we 
ain’ took in enuf lately to pay de rent. An’ ef I fin’s 


68 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

time fo’ a bit ob calcimlnin’ endurin’ de week, It seem 
to me soapsuds aln’ gonna pisen ’Manthus’ blood.” 

‘‘Why don’t you tell her so, Temcy?” 

The darky looked up quickly. ‘‘Why don’ a fish fly?” 
They were silent a minute, Temcy regarding his boots 
with lugubrious solemnity. 

‘‘Then what Is your Idea?” Brawn broke the silence 
at length. 

“Lawse, Mist’ John, I aln’ got no Idea. ’At’s why I 
come to you. You see. Mist’ John, all I aim fo’ to 
do Is lay huh aside fo’ a while ontll she gits de notion 
dis heah chu’ch aln’ make no lady of huh. An’ den I 
picks huh up agin’ an goes erlong natural.” 

“Are you your own treasurer, Temcy?” 

“I Is. Lately hit aln’ been a ha’d job, countin’ de 
money. WId niggehs gittin six an’ sebben dollars a 
day hit make ’em careful. None ob It goes to de 
Lawd.” 

“Nor to the Church of the Exodus?” 

“Fo’ long de chu’ch ob de Exodus gwine In de hands 
ob a recelvuh. Dat’s all. Now ef ’Manthus-” 

“Suppose you send Amanthus down to see me. 
Maybe I can straighten her out.—That’s a good Idea 
of yours but I am afraid It won’t work shipshape. 
And by the way, Mrs. Haldeman Davis wants her brick 
stable calcimlned. She’s making a garage out of It. 
Out on Sixth Street, you remember?” 

The door of the private office swung open. A man 
poked In his head, 

“Just a minute, Mr. Cunningham.—You go out to 
see Mrs. Haldeman Davis. And you send Amanthus 
in to see me. Got that address?” 

He edged the bowing darky out of the room. 



JOHN-NO-BRAWN 69 

Mr. Cunningham came in. He was a young, ner¬ 
vous man with eyes that were never still and hands 
that were always moving. 

“Just want to tell you,” he said, “that that business 
looks as if it was going over.” His eyes rested for 
a moment on Brawn’s face—keen and expectant. 

Brawn turned to his desk. “I don’t know, Charlie. 
Things have been pretty good for me here lately.” 

“I see they have.” He jerked his head in the direc¬ 
tion of the door. “That kind of clients.” 

“Well-” 

“Time you were giving up this tin-horn notion about 
law. Of course I know a salary job’s no job to keep. 
But then—say, listen. Old man Hodges is going to 
Florida to fish for the balance of the winter. And Mr. 
Smith has been elected vice president of the golf club. 
And there’s me—and the office force.” 

“But-” 

“Oh, I know. They won’t amount to anything. 
Ever. Lot of night-school lawyers.—And it’s not up 
to me to convince you against your will. But old man 
Smith was talking about you to me yesterday after¬ 
noon. And it could be worked all right. They’re not 
going to live forever. We could swing that firm in a 

year or two and- Well, so long. I’m late now. 

I’ll let you know in case anything comes up.” Abruptly 
he started across the room and out through the 
door. 

“I say, Charlie-” Brawn started from his chair 

but Cunningham had vanished. 

Brawn resumed his seat. Tin-horn practice ! May¬ 
be it was. He didn’t know what was best to do. 
Hodges and Smith were a good firm. But he didn’t 






70 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

know. He’d be under some one else’s supervision. 
This corporation practice included a lot of grovelling 
details. And Charlie Cunningham—he was a good 
scout. He had known him twenty years or more but 
Charlie was erratic sometimes and he might be mis¬ 
taken. It might be best to leave things well enough 
alone. 

And then all of a sudden a feeling of loneliness 
oppressed him. Not a kinsman in the whole town; not 
a soul to turn to in case of illness or trouble. There 
were some cousins in Lexington and an aunt in Clarks¬ 
ville, Tennessee. A room in a boarding house, a mem¬ 
bership at the club, a lot of friends who would shoot 
pool or play a game of bridge and then go home to 
their wives. A flock of chattering girls, marrying off 
one by one and shifting their viewpoints at once from 
dances and teas to white woodwork and babies and 
gossip. Such had been life as he’d seen it. Those 
friends—and Phyllida. There was a lot of crystal- 
lyzing in the process of growing old. One gathered 
substance like a dust particle in a solution: friends, 
properties, duties, children. He was feeling quite 
lonely. Phyllida was one of the few that had not yet 
passed that boundary of youth. And in all probability 
she would soon marry George Ambrose for all that he 
was a Catholic. He had that capacity of acquiring, 
without which a man cannot marry, cannot settle down. 
As for Cloud—a sinister foreboding came over him. 
Suppose she should get mixed up with Cloud? It was 
unbelievable; she was not the sort to get entangled. 
She kept her head too well. At least she always had. 
What she could see in Cloud, and for that matter 
what Cloud could see in her, was to him a mystery. 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 71 

It made him sore about the heart thinking about it. 
It was none of his business. But it would be within 
the bounds of possibility for Phyllida to go farther and 
farther,—thinking she was having a good time, in 
Jerry’s uncle’s car—the car Jerry was always pre¬ 
tending the old man had loaned him just for the even¬ 
ing—and then, all of a sudden, almost anything could 
happen. Every time he saw Cloud he felt the same as 
w^hen he saw buzzards over a field. 

But it was none of his business. He was nobody. 
He had no immediate background of belongings and 
properties. All his background was in the dingy past. 
He lived in a boarding house and had niggers and 
working people for clients. And Phil never took him 
seriously. Who could? But it didn’t matter. The 
Colemans were pretty hard to swallow. If anybody 
had any notion of marrying, in-laws like that were al¬ 
ways a deterrent. Now if this new prospect opened 

up all right- He suddenly realized the trend his 

thought was taking and sprang to his feet with an ex¬ 
clamation of impatience. He seized his hat and hur¬ 
ried out upon the street. 

But the day was not finished. In the afternoon’s 
mail he received a letter from his insurance firm—the 
firm for which he had been investigating occasional 
accidents. The letter made him a proposition defi¬ 
nitely to represent the company on all matters in the 
territory. It furthermore offered him a monthly re¬ 
tainer fee of seventy-five dollars. The news did not 
exhilarate him but it did fill him with a sort of solid 
satisfaction. Shyster practice? Maybe. Maybe not. 
He was glad he had not been too eager with Cunning¬ 
ham. “That’s coming along,” was the gist of his 



72 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

thought. He sat for a moment, chin on palm, and 
watched the people threading along Jefferson Street, 
the good folk of Louisville about their business. He 
was a part of those people. He was needing them 
and they were needing him. 

He grabbed up his hat and went out to get himself a 
drink at a soda fountain. There was something solid 
in the way he did it. . . . 

The three spinster ladies were pleased—they told 
him so—about his good fortune, but they were not 
unusually impressed. He took them his good news 
that night, en route to a theatre party. He frequently 
dropped in after the manner of an epicure indulging in 
a cocktail before a pleasantly anticipated dinner. After 
a moment’s impressive silence. Miss Jenkins—who was 
the corsetiere—turned to the assistant librarian. Miss 
Blunk. “I very nearly fell for the neatest little ivory 
cigarette holder this morning.” 

Miss Blunk looked reprovingly up from the Sun¬ 
day Supplement. “What can you be wanting with a 
cigarette holder? You don’t smoke at all.” 

“I might,” responded Miss Jenkins, nervously ad¬ 
justing her figure. “That’s just the point. I was 
almost tempted. You wouldn’t mind, would you, John, 
if I smoked?” 

“He would. Just because he comes to see us every 
now and then is no sign he hasn’t good Puritan blood 
in his veins.” 

“Aw, say I” interposed Brawn. 

“Do you know the first time I ever saw John 
Brawn?” went on Miss Blunk relentlessly. “Well, it 
was on top of a sea-going hack, in a November fog, 
six years ago.” 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 73 

“Is that your idea of being a Puritan!’’ cried Miss 
Jenkins from the divan. 

“Just give me time. I didn’t say what was inside. 
The cab stopped and old ladies began to come out. I 
never saw so many old ladies in my life. Five or six 
of them—all in one cab. And this young cavalier 
jumped down off the roof of the cab and took the whole 
bunch of them-’’ 

“Cavalier! I thought you said Puritan. Say, you’re 
getting your dates mixed, aren’t you?’’ 

Brawn was flushing. “I-” 

“Let me finish. He took ’em all in the Rathskeller 
entrance and I closed my eyes.’’ 

“It was a meeting of the Literary Club,’’ explained 
Brawn. 

“I know. Let me finish.—The creme de la creme. 
He was in sole charge. Mrs. Rathburn, Mrs. Wood- 
berry—all the grand dames. Now for you to-’’ 

“If he has a real weakness for old ladies, why 
doesn’t he come here to live with us? What do you say 

to that, John? Don’t you think-’’ interposed Miss 

Jenkins with sprightly enthusiasm. 

“Cornelia! Your imagination will get you into 
trouble yet.—He didn’t want to do it. It was just 
his high sense of responsibility.^’ 

“You’re not coming here just for that reason, are 
you, John? Oh, how I’d hate being a responsibility.’’ 

“You’re not,’’ said Brawn. “But I have one at the 
theatre. Gotta go.’’ Somehow he was feeling that 
their chatter was a bit dull. Same old stuff all the 
time. 

The two women glanced up but remained seated. 
“Bye-bye, John. Don’t forget us in prosperity.’’ 






74 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

They let him go through the door and out into the 
darkened passage unescorted. It was the price of 
intimacy but somehow he felt as if he deserved more. 
He did not know that sympathy with success is a 
very rare gem indeed. 


CHAPTER VII 


M arch finished its work one Saturday after¬ 
noon. All the morning Brawn had been too 
busy to realize it. Mrs. Crane, the wife of 
the president of Stilz & Crane, makers of porcelain 
bathtubs, was taking him to a tea that afternoon, up 
on the River Road. The tea was at the Marlowes’ 
and it was a tactical manoeuvre in the interest of Hilde- 
garde Stilz, just out, and of Mr. Marlowe’s sand pit 
and gravel bed. 

At two o’clock Brawn closed his desk and sighed. 
He paused for a moment in his swivel chair and looked 
aimlessly up at the framed diploma above his desk. 
Then he seized his hat and hurried out. 

Mrs. Wilbur Crane was a new arrival from Illinois. 
She was getting acclimated. Her acquaintance with 
Brawn dated from the dismal ball of November the 
twenty-third. She was pleasantly cordial when Brawn 
accepted her phone invitation to be a passenger in her 
car out to the tea for Miss Stilz and she hinted at 
other passengers. But when the limousine rolled up 
to the curb on Compton Street, she occupied the in¬ 
closed portion of the car alone. And Brawn kept her 
waiting ten minutes. 

Her smile lacked warmth when he came out shed¬ 
ding apologies, and for a short time the conversation 
showed jagged edges. For Brawn was wondering who 


75 




76 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

else might be sharing this interior with them, and Mrs. 
Crane was, with marked restraint, administering first 
aid to her ruffled feelings. But they were passing 
through a lovely, shaded district of the town, where 
the trees lined the curbstones like tall posts in a feath¬ 
ery trellis and the sunlight was so faintly golden, the 
grass and the new leaves so delicately fresh, and the 
air so redolent of crystal rain on dusty earth that 
the two of them were irresistibly drawn together in 
the common cause of humanity: to enjoy. 

“Were you any relation of Judge Brawn, Mr. 
Brawn?” Mrs. Crane graciously broke the silence. 
She was smiling now. 

“My father,” said Brawn. “Came here from Vir- 
ginia. 

“Ye-es?” Mrs. Crane seemed pleased. She had 
been making inquiries and was merely orienting her¬ 
self, a difficult process for some people even in the 
democratic South. “And why haven’t you been coming 
to the parties? A young man like yourself—it’s sel¬ 
fish of you. I’m sure. Such a lovely crowd of girls.” 

“I’m afraid I’ve been too busy, Mrs. Crane. You 
see, I have to make my living and-” 

“Ye-es. Of course. But then you must have some 
pleasure. What do you do, Mr. Brawn?” 

“I’m a lawyer.” 

“Ye-es. Of course. Mrs. Benedict told me. But 
you’re not old enough to settle down exclusively to 
work. A man in your business, it seems to me, ought 
to get out and meet and know a lot of people.” 

“I guess I’ve done my share of that. Three or four 
years ago I was doing enough to last me for a lifetime. 
—Do you know the Bluegrass, Mrs. Crane?” 



77 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

“Yes. Oh yes. Lovely, lovely place.” A smart 
little motor cab went whirling by and Mrs. Crane 
leaned forward in a desperate but futile effort to see 
who was in it. 

“Well, three years ago, a crowd of us used to 
motor up every week-end to dances in Frankfort and 
Lexington—at the country club. Kept me broke all 
the time. We’d start out at noon Saturday to go for 
a ride around the park and not come back maybe until 
Monday morning. Why, on one trip we had twenty- 
three punctures and blowouts and we stuffed an old 
shirt in the tire and came in on the old shirt. We 
spent one night on the road—the girls in the car with 
the chaperon and the rest of us scattered over the 
landscape. I slept under a shed by the road and when 
I woke up I found there were pigs in it—just a pig 
sty, that was all. And another time we went up to 
Jim Bulliss’s wedding up in Danville and we left after 
a dance—three o’clock in the morning. It was Christ¬ 
mas week and while we were on the road it blew up a 

blizzard and we-” Mrs. Crane was looking out the 

window; she was not hearing him at all—“we’d like 
to have not gotten there.” 

At his pause she turned to him and smiled. “You 
did have a good time, didn’t you?” She seemed to be 
turning over something in her mind. Then she smiled 
again, this time with frank archness. “You see. I’m 
appropriating a young beau to-day but I’m still old 
enough to give you good advice. Charlie had to be in 
Chicago and I did ask Bessie Love to come with us, 
but Bessie had a headache, poor dear, and I’m really 
not so sorry.” 

Brawn shuddered. He knew Bessie Love of old. 



78 JOHN-N 0 -BRAWN 

“I’m sure the ill wind brought its blessings to my door, 
Mrs. Crane.” 

He spoke so sincerely that she reached out and 
patted his hand. “There, there. With a gift like that 
you have no right to bury yourself away somewhere. 
You know I have a daughter. Angeline. She is nearly 
fifteen. She will be coming out some of these days 
and I want her to meet all the nice men.” 

“Is that so?” The response trailed rather wearily. 
It was such an old, old business. 

They came at length to Mrs. Marlowe’s. Turning 
sharply to the right, the car threaded its way along a 
narrow lane lined with willows and water maples 
that gave forth a high, sibilant whisper like an incipi¬ 
ent whistle as they passed. They crossed the track 
of the interurban and then began to climb a winding 
roadway that twisted up and across the face of the 
cliff like a capricious ribbon. At one turn they swung 
around a shoulder that jutted out above the river and 
the golden ripples from sun paths on the water far 
away sent blinding little flashes against the wind¬ 
shield and into their eyes. They came to a wide gate 
in a shaggy box hedge and turned in, and in another 
moment Brawn was handing his lady across a worn 
old horse block. 

The tea was, of course, indoors and there were the 
babble and bustle incident to such gatherings. Brawn 
was having doubts as to his eternal fitness for promis¬ 
cuous social contact—after four months of purposeful 
work—and wandered from group to group, very care¬ 
fully avoiding any entanglement. Mrs. Crane he had 
left in the shelter of a congeniality from Peoria, and 
she had apparently forgotten him. 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 79 

There were present two elements: the close friends 
of Miss Hildegarde and the supporters of Mr. and 
Mrs. Marlowe’s social position. These two elements 
were moiling about like oil and water in a glass and 
were even then beginning to separate into opposite 
sides of the room with an increasing vacuum between, 
where Brawn shortly found himself, a vague, indis¬ 
criminate atom feeling neither cohesion with the one 
nor adhesion to the other. An open French door and 
a stretch of greening lawn caught his eye. He slipped 
out and away. 

The Marlowe gardens were noted in Kentucky. To 
the east was a grove of ancient trees that held the high 
land clear to the edge of the river bluff. To the west 
the ground had been cleared and it dipped away in 
graded terraces to a white lattice fence with brick 
posts, a quarter of a mile distant. On the horizontal 
surfaces of the terraces and covering the wider stretch 
of level ground to the north lay an army of flower beds 
freshly spaded and smoothed and waiting. At fre¬ 
quent intervals little walks of dark red brick went 
rambling around thick clumps of lilac bushes and be¬ 
neath little arching trellises covered with withered 
vines. The grass between the flower beds was the 
vividest green imaginable and in the fence corners 
the crocuses were poking up their vari-coloured heads. 
There was a delicious smell of the damp, fresh earth 
and in soft, pervading gusts came the undefinable 
smell of the river winding its slow, majestic way to the 
northwest. 

Something let go in Brawn’s body. He felt himself 
melting into the harmony of the evening, and responsi¬ 
bility and convention vanished entirely—futile, man- 


8o 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

made things. He wandered over in the direction of 
the river bluff, with the slanting sunlight soft and 
warm upon his face and the breeze ruffling his hair. 
Far to the northwest stretched the line of the opposite 
shore. Upon the opaque, yellowish shimmer of the 
river drifted an elongated dot, and a tentacle sweeping 
up therefrom in a tiny arc flashed a keen pin-prick 
of light and disappeared again. It was a fisherman 
laying his lines for river cat. Very softly, almost as 
though he were afraid he might be disturbing some¬ 
thing or somebody. Brawn slipped through an opening 
in the fence and out upon the edge of the bluff. Below 
him fell the ground in a great tangle of rocks and 
shrubbery to the second rise, for sixty feet or more. 
There was a narrow strip of fertile farm land reaching 
along between the foot of the bluff and the river bank 
and in this a man was ploughing. 

A few steps to Brawn’s left was a rustic pergola or 
lookout, with a little rail and two rough seats. It 
was perched on a large rock at the very brink of the 
bluff. Brawn walked slowly over to it and sat down. 

The sun began to slide riverward, reddening the 
vapours about the water so that a rosy opalescence 
seemed to gather, tremulous, out of nowhere, and the 
smoke pall from the city northward began to glow and 
shift, with thin streamers of wisp-like smoke curling 
upward into the pale turquoise of the sky. There came 
the sharp clatter of a flock of scolding sparrows over 
in a bush behind him and then, farther off, up the river, 
the hoarse, moaning call of a river steamer, rising and 
then mellowing off in the distance. Brawn was touched 
with a wistful discontent. The prospect of his law 
practice sank into an unfathomable abyss. He leaned 


JOHN-NO-B R AWN 81 

over and sat with his elbows on the railing, his chin 
on his hands, and gazed down the slowly passing river. 
There were other things, things very much worth 
while, slipping away from him, too, forever past his 
reach. 

For a long time he sat, motionless, and then a step, 
a very light soft step, sounded in the dried leaves 
behind him, and with a nervous start he straightened 
up and turned around. But it was too late; some one 
was even then coming through the gateway out upon 
the edge of the bluff. He sat still so as not to give the 
impression that he was being disturbed. Incuriously 
he watched the opening, and then Phyllida stepped 
through and up to the edge and looked down at the 
slope of rocks and bushes. And then she saw him 
—they were not more than ten feet apart—and a 
curious little uncertain expression came crowding into 
her face. 

Suddenly she smiled, flushed ever so little, and came 
toward him. “Perfect little deus ex machina/^ she 
laughed. “Sunset, brooding nature—alone at last.” 
Her laugh was a little hard. “What brings you here ?” 

Brawn was recovering slowly but there was still an 
uncertainty in the reserves that he was trying to sum¬ 
mon. “I’m ambassador in a new court. I came hunt¬ 
ing for possible business but somehow I like this 
better.” 

Phyllida raised her eyebrows and stared past him 
down the river. 

“And you?” Brawn caught a quick look at her 
profile. “Won’t you sit down?” 

“Me?—I’m the necessary touch of culture in the 
modern barbaric setting.” And, as Brawn appeared 


82 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

not to understand: “I’m supposed to know all there 
is to literature and poetry and drama. You haven’t 
heard? Well, I’m in charge of a counter at Fielding’s 
Book Store now.’’ 

She came and sat down on the rustic bench and 
leaned her arms on the railing. “It’s lovely here.” 

So she was working! The thought gave him funny 
little tingling sensations. She could not be doing that 
and be on the brink of marriage. For some reason he 
had dogmatically decided that she would marry— 
some one—probably Ambrose. And for that matter 
—his spirit trilled a little higher—would she take up 
anything seriously if all she cared about was a high old 
time ? 

“How’s—how’s George?” he stumbled. 

“George?—Oh, all right, I guess. I never see 
George. He’s deserted me entirely.” 

For quite a while she seemed content just to sit and 
gaze at the river and Brawn struggled but could find 
nothing whatever to say. He wanted to ask about 
Cloud, but somehow he did not dare. There had 
come into her face, it seemed to him, a softness, an 
etherial charm which the iridescent, shimmering light 
accentuated. The tip of her chin, the smooth line of 
her throat, the confusion of her hair—she turned to 
him and made as if to rise. “But I’m intruding on your 
sanctuary.” 

“Don’t go,” said Brawn. “I’ve—there’s no reason 
why you shouldn’t be enjoying it too.” 

“No? That’s nice.” 

Brawn flushed. “I’ve been an awful fool,” he said. 

There was no change in the expression of her face. 
And then, as if speaking to the far-off, misty river 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 83 

bank, her lips barely moving: “I sometimes wonder 
if you have.” 

He caught his breath. For a moment a new Phyl- 
lida seemed to sit before him, a new and strange per¬ 
son, strangely like the girl he sometimes dreamed she 
might be. She seemed to be sorry for something, no 
longer laughing at life. 

“I thought-” he began sombrely. 

“That’s just the trouble. You oughtn’t to think— 
ever. It’s what causes all the trouble in this world.” 
She turned toward him again; all the sharpness, all 
the cynical aloofness seemed to have gone from her. 
She was a part with the evening and for a moment he 
W'ondered how the world had touched her or—for a 
fleeting moment—if he were being made light of in 
some new and subtle fashion. The sun dipped behind 
the smoke pall and the golden glimmer in the air faded. 
He sat there by her side and watched the sky. He 
could have reached out and touched her if he had 
dared. But it was all so ephemeral he dared not move 
—dared scarcely breathe. And the light in the 
sky grew softer and then the river steamer which they 
had heard hoarsely calling came gliding down the oily 
yellow water with a hollow breathing of its stacks and 
the slow rhythmic plash of paddles. And directly 
even it was gone. 

She sprang to her feet. “Oh, I must be going.— 
How late is it?—This enchanted place makes one for¬ 
get one has to work—and eat.” She was taking one 
last look at the retreating steamer. 

“Might I—” he was feeling an impellent urge, an 
urge beyond reason—“might I-” and then as casu¬ 

ally as possible : “Home to-morrow night?” 




84 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

She laughed, a clear, friendly sort of laugh. “Sure¬ 
ly. Come around.” 

They walked back across the garden and when they 
arrived at the door of the house they noticed that the 
string of motors had practically disappeared. With 
a whispered protest of dismay, she reached out and 
gave him a touch on the arm. “Heavens!—What time 
is it?” And then she fled up the steps and into the 
house. 

Brawn followed her and looked about aimlessly for 
a few moments. He was told—he was assured with¬ 
out question—that Mrs. Crane had gone. It made 
him feel a bit queer for a moment. And then he 
looked about for Phyllida. But she, too, in the inter¬ 
val which he had fecklessly wasted, had slipped away. 


CHAPTER VIII 


J ANVRIN STREET had been losing ground. 
The socially elect and those aspiring were turn¬ 
ing their faces toward the east. And Janvrin 
Street was less self-conscious, less spic and span, much 
less resplendent than—for instance, Westover Court. 
And on this particular evening it was darker, quite, 
than any other street in town, with a gentle breeze 
rustling in the tall elms that lined the sidewalk and 
shaking down little showers of water on Brawn’s head 
as he walked slowly along. The sun had gone down an 
hour and a half before, all softly yellow, and the gleam 
of it had set countless raindrops quivering and spark¬ 
ling all across the lawns. There had been a liquid 
gurgling of thrushes in the lilac bushes and the most re¬ 
freshing odour of a thousand flowering things all 
crammed into a single breath of a breeze that came 
dawdling into the city from the southwest, and then 
suddenly the light had faded and there had come a 
darkness that was close and warm and intimate, with 
cloud banks that drifted eastward and occasional 
breathless showers of rain and every now and then a 
patch of blue-black sky from which every cloying tar¬ 
nish had been washed, and pricked here and there 
with stars. 

The uneven surface of the brick pavement felt 
friendly and familiar to Brawn, even the slanting tree 

85 


86 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

shadows from the electric light on the corner. But 
when he turned in at the walk that led up to the Cole¬ 
man house an awkward sensation seemed uppermost, a 
feeling of embarrassment just as though cynically pry^ 
ing eyes might be watching him. In case Mrs. Cole¬ 
man should answer his ring, what should he say to 
her? Six months was an awkward interval. 

As he stood waiting in the vestibule, he felt that he 
had lost all hold on himself. The April night was so 
uncertain, shadowed by strange forecasts, and yet 
w'arrn and fragrant and suggestive. What should he 
say to her—how would she take things? 

The door opened; it was a tremendous door, reach¬ 
ing up nearly to the very high ceiling—it had a flimsy 
white curtain stretched across it that looked like a gray 
patch in the shadow. Phyllida’s voice was bidding 
him enter—he could only make out the blur of her in 
the darkness. There was nothing definite in the voice, 
nothing definitely hostile, nothing definitely friendly. 
He followed her into the hall. 

“I’m all by myself,” she said. “All except Mary 
who has been naughty and is repenting of her sins 
upstairs.—I hated to turn on the light. Let’s sit back 
here. Do you mind?” 

“Rather,” said Brawn. 

She led him down the hall to a back window—the 
square of it was a deep bluish gray and the objects in 
the hall were just suggested shadows without form. 
He felt his way along and directly he touched the un¬ 
mistakable surface of a horse-hair sofa and knew where 
he was. He sat down. The shadow that was Phyllida 
disappeared in the blackness of the corner. He could 
hear her stirring slightly. 


8? 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

“Well?” she said at length. 

“I a-” and then he paused and laughed un¬ 

easily. 

“It’s been lovely to-day,” she went on as if she had 
not heard him. “First real spring we’ve had. I’ve 
been sitting here since sunset—here in the soft dark. 
Smell the lilacs ?” 

“Yes,” he replied. “They’re fine, aren’t they.” 

A moment’s pause. “April’s a mad month. Think 
if I ever run away it will be in April.” 

“Not this April, by any chance?” He laughed 
again. He could feel the prickles of protruding horse 
hairs. 

“Oh, some April maybe.—Well, tell us about your¬ 
self.” 

He did not know how to begin; there was such a 
bright, sharp little edge in her tone. And there came 
a rustling in the bushes outside the window and the 
sudden patter of rain. “I don’t think that matters so 

much,” he heard his voice saying. “I a- Let’s 

talk about somebody else for a change.” 

“You’re the subject I seem to know least about.” 
The words made him uncomfortable. He could not 
see her face, and mere words like that- 

“Phil,” he said, coming with frightful suddenness 
to an impasse. “I’ve never talked straight to you.” 
He paused. His heart had stopped beating. His 
brain went round and round and yet there was one 
small persistent idea pecking away in it. 

“Well, whose fault is that?” 

“Mine. Mine entirely. You see, there are certain 
things a man cannot tell a girl right out.” He was 
thinking about Cloud. It was his obvious duty to tell 





88 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

her about Cloud. He had been wanting to tell her. 
But how could he ? “It would make things clearer, you 
know. Now, I don’t want you to think—well, I just 
didn’t know how to go about it and I didn’t think it 
mattered and to tell you the truth I have missed seeing 
you—like the devil.” 

“You make it perfectly clear. Job.” 

“You see, one hasn’t but one life to spend and some¬ 
how I’ve wanted to make something worth while of 
mine. I’ve dreamed of going away somewhere. 
Everybody does, I suppose. I’ve wished I might 
throw myself into some great struggle and give all 
I’ve got for the great joy of living—really living— 
once. And I always come back to the thought that 
there’s no such thing as that. That a man has to stick 
to his everyday work and take what is coming to him 
and wish right all the time so that in case something 
does come up he can rise to his emergency and—oh, 
hell—I beg your pardon—there’s so many things like 
that that a man misses a friend to talk to that he can 
talk to.” He stopped and looked out the window into 
the warm press of shadows. 

“You’ve come that far?” said Phyllida from her 
corner, and then suddenly she was doing a curious 
thing. She came and sat beside him and took his hand. 
The pounding in his heart was vying with the ache in 
his throat. He still kept his eyes toward the window. 

“Job,” she was saying, “you talk very much like a 
jig-saw puzzle and I—well, let me tell you this one 
thing.” She paused a moment. His hand was upon 
the sofa and hers covered it with a firm, steady, warm 
pressure. “There’s been no reason why you should have 
quit coming to see me. Job. Do you understand?” 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 89 

“Phil! It isn’t that at all. You see, I didn’t see 
how I made any difference. It was—well, I did not 

know what else I could-You didn’t need me. You 

don’t need me. I’ll say this: I was the one who lost out 
on the deal.’’ 

“Friends are not so plentiful. Job, that any one can 
cast them around like a farmer sowing corn.’’ She 
withdrew her hand. “Now I think I’m going to tell 
you to go, Job. You see, I am trying to dope things 
out and I wanted to get you straight-’’ 

At once his concern for himself vanished. A strong¬ 
er and a clearer desire welled into his heart. He 
stood up. “Well,’’ he began quite cheerily. “Here’s 
how 

And just then there was a fumbling at the front door 
and directly it swung open and there was a murmur 
of voices. And then the front hall light switched on 
and Mrs. Coleman’s figure became visible, bending 
over a card table in the hall. A man stood In the 
doorway, a man In a derby hat and holding a pair of 
gloves and a stick thrust beneath his arm and project¬ 
ing out behind. The hall light was dim and they did 
not stand out too clearly. Mrs. Coleman spoke: 

“It’s not here, Wally. So trot along. I’ll let you 
know.” 

The man said something In a low tone. 

“No. Not now. I’ll let you know. Thank you, 
Wally.” 

The door closed softly. Brawn stood In his tracks, 
silent In the darkness, feeling a strange embarrass¬ 
ment. 

“Mama.” 

Mrs. Coleman looked up. A smile came over her 




90 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

face and she slipped something into her pocket with a 
swift, fumbling movement. “You gave me a fearful 
start.” 

“Fm sorry.” 

She came a step or two toward them. “You’ll never 
know what an evening Fve had. Exhausting! Fm 
going straight up to bed.” And still she lingered, 
apparently looking for something. “What time is it 
—about?” 

“A little after nine.” 

“Good-night, dear.” 

They heard her steps on the stairs and a moment 
later the closing of a door and then a child’s queru¬ 
lous, high-pitched voice. 

Brawn was confused. There was nothing for him to 
say. It made him feel very queer, what he had 

just seen. “I a- Fd better be on my way, I 

guess.” 

He could hear Phyllida rising to her feet and he 
wandered out the hall as casually as he could. Be¬ 
neath the hall light he turned. Phyllida was standing 
beside him, her head averted. She was giving her eyes 
a dab with a pocket handkerchief. She looked up and 
he saw that she was crying. She tried to smile at him 
at the same time. 

He felt unmentionable depths. A vast trem¬ 
bling seized upon him and a vaster resolve. He 
reached out his arm and drew her to him. There was 
an expression in her eyes which he could not fathom— 
and the tears. He kissed her mouth—there in the 
dim, yellow light—and there was a great pounding in 
his heart—ah, her lips were soft. She pushed him 
away. “Oh, Phil-” 




JOHN-NO-BRAWN 91 

**You must go now, Job.—Go now.” There was the 
oddest, wide-open look in her eyes—of shame and con¬ 
cern. She was opening the door for him. 

He picked up his hat and passed through and in the 
vestibule he again turned to her. 

“No, John. Not now. Some other time we’ll talk. 
To-morrow, maybe.” 

“To-morrow’s a long, long time.” 

She stood silhouetted in the vestibule. Not a sound 
disturbed Janvrin Street, not a sound save the soft 
rustling of the elms and the whispering patter of drops 
dripping on the sidewalk. For a moment he stood be¬ 
side her, his shoulder touching hers, and she was so 
shadowy and there was a fragrance in her hair. 

“Do you mean it?” he whispered. 

“I—I’m afraid I do.” 

“Then—to-morrow.” 

“Maybe.” 

“I’ll phone you.” He stooped over quickly and 
kissed her again. It fell tumblewise upon her cheek, 
just as she was drawing back into the doorway. And 
then Brawn walked steadily down the steps. “Good¬ 
night.” 

The door closed. For a moment the shadow of the 
vestibule seemed to be calling him back. But he lifted 
his shoulders and passed on down the walk. 

He went swinging down the street with the elm 
branches thick above him, a sheltering canopy. Up 
ahead, the light from the corner sent streaking shad¬ 
ows along the pavement and then came the patter of 
the persistent rain. He turned up his collar and pulled 
down his hat and began to sing a foolish little song 
about the happy coincidence of a diamond’s not being 


92 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

one foot round and a little woman’s not being six feet 
tall. It was a mad, mad world. Just what had hap¬ 
pened to him? Phyllida—of all people! 

He reached the corner and it was raining hard. A 
man’s figure stepped up on the curbstone before him 
from the wet and glistening street. They met in the 
glare of the electric light. Brawn had a momentarily 
unpleasant shock. The face was Jerry Cloud’s, white 
and wan looking under the checkered cap that was 
dripping moisture from the peak. * 

“Ho! Old John Brawn! What’s the matter? 
Didn’t anybody tell you it was raining?” 

“Is it?” 

“My God!” 

“Gimme something to smoke.” 

Cloud fished in his pocket. He handed over a 
crumpled package. “What’s up? Somebody tell you 
there wasn’t no hell?” 

“They did. But don’t you count on it.” He caught 
a light from his cupped hands. “Thanks. Going in 
town?” 

“Think not. Good-night.” 

“Good-night.” 

They parted: Cloud continuing south; Brawn turn¬ 
ing to the left down Appleton Street. In just the min¬ 
utest way the world seemed less lovely. Where could 
Cloud be going? Quite likely he was going to see Phil. 
There was nothing wrong in that. And yet somehow 
he could not help feeling just that edge of uneasiness 
that he felt every time Cloud came around. There 
was no telling what he might do. He had the poten¬ 
tiality of all evil, somehow—and yet he was harmless 
enough. And Brawn’s heart was singing. And he was 


93 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

resentful that Cloud might be going where he would 
give the world to be. A curious thing, this thing that 
had happened to him to-night. She had loved him 
all along and he had loved her. And then like an ugly, 
pestering insect. Burton’s story came into the corner 
of his mind. Angrily he thrust it out. The world was 
like that—seeking to spoil all it couldn’t enjoy. But 
did she really mean it or was she playing with him? 
What a fool he was to have thoughts like that after 
the wonderful sweetness of her. What a curious 
household it was: Mrs. Coleman and the shadowy 
Wally with his gloves and stick. 

A momentary resolve hardened into action and he 
retraced his steps, back from the car line, back to the 
corner. The light was swinging gently to and fro upon 
its bracket. In the south the clouds were breaking and 
there was a graying luminance there as of early morn¬ 
ing. Only it could not be so very late. Brawn stood 
at the corner of the house for a moment and looked 
out Janvrin Street. Everything was quiet; no one was 
abroad. Then as he looked along the faces of the 
houses—they were all pretty much on a line—he 
thought for a moment he could see the silhouette of a 
man’s head and shoulders against the sky, as though 
waiting for something. And the house was about 
where the Coleman’s ought to be. It was too dark to 
count the houses. But in another moment he decided 
he had seen no one. And if he had, what was the 
harm? 

He turned on his heel and walked briskly back down 
Appleton Street toward the car line. The air felt like 
cold water in his lungs—it was so fresh and fine abroad. 
And what a complex thing life was. And what a curi- 


94 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

ous family the Colemans—a real shadow hovering 
about it. And how gloriously entangled he was now, 
with everything—so that he couldn’t tell “t’other from 
which.” Well, let it be that way. He felt the touch 
of her lips, sensed the fragrance of her hair. 


CHAPTER IX 


T he next morning was an ordinary spring morn¬ 
ing, bright and sunny and warm. The new 
leaves were slowly uncurling in the sunlight 
and there was a thick powder of pollen all over the 
pavements in Compton Street. 

John Brawn boarded a car at eight fifteen. He 
pushed his way through the crowd clustered on the 
back platform. He seemed very grave. Then he 
found a brace for his back against the rear inside par¬ 
tition and he opened his newspaper and began to read. 
He was not concerned with the other passengers and 
their puerile bickerings. He was a settled man, a 
man with a destiny. He scanned the stock reports but 
got very little from the inspection. The question arose 
in his mind: could he get by on what he was making 
and take on the added responsibility of another? 
How much was he really making? He did not know. 
It disturbed him momentarily. 

The clank of the heavy car wheels made a mon¬ 
otonous rhythm. The breath of the spring morning 
was fresh and clean and fragrant and it made a differ¬ 
ence to some one that success should attend his efforts. 
His work at the office was purposeful. He alighted 
from the car at Jefferson Street, very thoughtful and 
preoccupied, and was nearly run down by a boy on a 
bicycle. 


95 


96 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

At nine o’clock he called up Phyllida. 

“I’ve a surprise for you, Job,’’ she said. 

“There aren’t any more surprises.” 

“I’m going away this afternoon.” . 

“That’s nice. Where to?” 

“And I may be gone quite a while.” 

He was suddenly disturbed. But he kept on the 
same light key. “Is that the very latest convention?” 

“No,” she said. “Mama’s a—unwell. I’m to take 
her away to the springs. It was all arranged for me 
last night.” 

“Oh.” 

He was silent and she seemed to be waiting for his 
further comment, but none came. 

“Perhaps-” She hesitated. “Maybe you can 

get me a job when I come back.” 

“Are you going to be gone as long as that?— 
What is Fielding going to say?” 

“I don’t know.—I’m not important. They won’t 
know I’m gone.” 

“What time do you go?” 

“Four o’clock.—B. and O.” 

“I a- Let’s see.—I’ll be down. I think I can 

make it.” The world had suddenly changed. One of 
the sensations he had experienced just before retiring 
had been a feeling that the essentials of his life were 
settled—a regretful feeling, in a manner, that there 
was nothing to lose his way over. But he was not so 
sure now. “Phil,” he said, suddenly anxious, “you’ve a 

-things are not different from what they were last 

night, are they?” 

A faint laugh came to him over the phone. “I’ll 
say they are. Tell you about it all later.” 





JOHN-NO-BRAWN 97 

“Why, what’s the matter, Phil? Is there anything 
wrong?” 

He was conscious of talking into a dead phone. 
“Phil!—I say, Phil!” He jiggled the receiver. 
“Number please,” said the operator. 

He hung up the receiver and walked away, deep in 
painful thought. 

At three thirty he reached the depot. He was 
wracked with anxiety and worry. And just twenty- 
four hours before, he had been comparatively free in 
his mind! He had an impatient desire to see Phyllida 
at once—to see her and talk to her and establish in his 
own mind exactly how things were. There was some 
sort of funny business going on. Suppose Cloud or 
Ambrose or both of them should appear? He couldn’t 
endure that. 

He looked at the clock. Thirty minutes to wait. 
There was no telling just when they would reach the 
station. He couldn’t afford to miss any of the time 
with her. He wished that he had gone out to the house 
when she had called. But then he wasn’t sure. Per¬ 
haps they had already come—were attending to their 
baggage. 

He hurried around to the rear of the station and 
burst through the door into the baggage room. Mrs. 
Coleman stood before the counter, leaning on it with 
her elbows. Her back was unmistakable. “If you 
don’t get it on the train. I’ll see if I can’t find out why 
—from some one who is responsible,” she was saying. 
The tone was strident. The baggage clerk was busy 
stamping something wdth a rubber stamp, a check be¬ 
tween his teeth, a flush in his cheeks. Mrs. Coleman 
did not seem much like a sick woman. Brawn slipped 


98 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

back through the door, quietly so as not to be heard. 

He found Phyllida in the train shed, near the gate, 
holding Mary by the hand. He tried to read her face 
but could not. She seemed a little tired—otherwise the 
same. 

“What’s wrong?” he said as he came up to her. 

“Hello, Job,” she replied and shook her head, glanc¬ 
ing surreptitiously down at Mary who, swinging by one 
arm, was taking in the drama of the station. 

At once he wished the little girl at the bottom of the 
river or some other such remote place and he cast about 
for some errand on which to send her. None seemed 
apparent. 

“This is a pretty sudden thing to do, isn’t it?” he 
said, and his voice trembled just a little. “How are 
you, Mary? How do you like going away?” 

Mary did not answer him. She merely smiled. 
Brawn was not a great favourite of hers; he could not 
treat her without abstraction. 

He turned again to Phyllida. “I a- This puts 

me in a curious position. Of course it’s none of my 
business but it surely isn’t abnormal for me to want to 
know a little more about things.” 

She gave him a quick look. “I can’t tell you now,” 
she said hurriedly. “Here comes Mama. We’re— 
we’re not going to the springs. I told you that this 
morning because it was easier. Chicago. I’ll write 
you soon as I can.” 

Mrs. Coleman came up. “How do you do, Mr. 
Brawn.” She smiled at him. “Nice of you to come 
see us off.—I got them checked, dearie.—What time 
is it?—^A quarter to four?—Hadn’t we better be 
getting on?” And, as they approached the gate: 



JOHN-NO-BRAWN 99 

“Haven’t seen much of you lately, Mr. Brawn. Been 
away?—Here, dearie. I’ll take the coat.” 

He strove to catch Phylllda’s eye, without success. 
But as they paused just before the gate Phyllida 
reached out and took his hand and gave it a little 
squeeze. “I’ll write. Job.—Sit steady in the boat— 
please.” 

And then they were gone. He watched them cross 
the tracks and pass along a line of coaches until they 
were hidden by intervening cars. 

He walked dully back through the station and began 
to climb the hill of Seventh Street. The sky was blue 
between the roofs and there was a lazy feel in the air. 
An old Negro coachman standing by a dingy cab of 
a dying era doffed his tall hat to him as he passed; 
the old horse lazily flicked his tail and stood with 
eyes half closed. The sight of such complacency 
brought upon Brawn such a frenzy of irritation that, 
had it been possible, he would have run after the 
train, calling to it to stop, demanding that all this 
hugger-mugger be explained away. Did she care for 
him, or did she not? She had squeezed his hand. And 
last night he had kissed her. Was it that he did not 
know anything about women? Was he merely a toy 
to be jiggled up and down on a stick? It seemed to 
him that fate, or whatever else was responsible, was 
buffeting him around too freely. 

He could not work, so he went to the club. He 
wandered in and found the place soaked up with the 
same spring lassitude. Suddenly he remembered it was 
spring. Two men whose faces were familiar but 
whose names he did not know were standing in the 
doorway of the cloak-room, talking about the war. 


loo JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

Brawn pushed past them. He hung up his hat on a 
peg. He chanced to overhear a bit of their conversa¬ 
tion. They seemed to be excited over something and 
one of them was saying that Jerry Cloud had just made 
a precipitate departure with the ostensible purpose of 
crossing the border and enlisting with the Canadians. 
At once a glamour seemed to spread over the provin¬ 
cial atmosphere of the club. He had not guessed that 
Jerry had had that sort of stuff in him. 


CHAPTER X 


O F COURSE he did not expect any word that 
next morning. But in the afternoon Brawn 
met the postman in the doorway and quickly 
ran through the mail. A sharp prick of disappointment 
caught him. There was nothing there. She had not 
written from the train. He would have done so. 

That night as he walked home in the shimmering 
dusk, he felt isolated again. The feeling that he be¬ 
longed, that he was a part of the scheme, the feeling 
that had given him a sudden, magic dominance, was 
wavering in uncertainty. The hurrying crowds, home¬ 
going, of serious, sober-sided men with newspapers 
stuck in their pockets, of chattering schoolgirls with 
arms interlinked—they were wearing their dresses 
pretty brazenly short these days, he thought—all 
seemed to be purposeful and happy. He passed an 
old man in a ragged gray overcoat and an incongru¬ 
ously undergraduate-looking cap with a huge peak. 
The old man regarded him with vacant rheumy eyes 
and then wandered over to a window display of hot- 
water bottles and stood staring at them, hands in 
pockets. Brawn could feel the contrast between this 
derelict spirit and the purposeful routine all about it 
—it was quite keenly evident. 

The next morning he had an alert ear for the door. 
But there was no mail for him. He realized that he 
was being childish, but then it was natural, he assured 


lOI 


102 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

himself, to want to hear—to want to hear, passionately 
—that was part of the glamour of the awakening. It 
was new to him—a very beautiful new thing. Perhaps 
it was not so new to her. His throat had a little dry 
ache in it and he attacked the sheaf of letters on his 
desk savagely. He would never know, he supposed, 
just where he stood with Phyllida—never know just 
how she was going to react to anything. He would 
always be exposing himself, taking her at face value. 
A hot, ugly thought came crowding in his mind. Mon¬ 
day night was possibly nothing new for her—a little 
pleasant excitement. Perhaps by now it was washed 
entirely from her mind. He was quite sober and 
vague and courteous all that morning. 

That afternoon he spent running down witnesses 
and it was late when he returned to the office. An 
unsuccessful effort to get a comprehensive statement 
out of an old lady was worrying him as he came up in 
the elevator. He walked over to his desk in a kind of 
maze and stood there thinking. And then he saw the 
unbusiness-like envelope lying on the desk on top of 
other mail. Instantly the thought of the old woman 
vanished. He tore open the envelope. He read 
eagerly. And then the smile died upon his face. He 
laid the letter down upon his desk. It read: 

Dear Old Thing: 

Awfully rushed. Mama did not like the hotel so I had to hunt 
another. We are at the Cosmopole—get that name! Dizziest crowd 
of wrecks ambling about you ever saw. Know I’m going to have 
a riot here. Haven’t time for a letter. Will you drop into Field¬ 
ing’s and rescue that purple knit scarf of mine and mail it to me? 

Hurriedly, 

Phil. 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 103 

He had fatuously expected more—a suggestion of 
understanding, a light touch expressive of the fact 
that she was missing him, written in the inimitable 
way of her. Desperately fearful of the sentimental, 
of the melodramatic, he knew her to be; still—well, 
he had expected more. 

That night he got in a poker game and lost twenty- 
two dollars. As he got up from the table he felt he 
was being quite sporting. But when he went to bed, 
he was regretfully calculating how much that twenty- 
two dollars would have bought for him. The evening 
had not been worth that much. 

Friday morning he awoke with the conviction that 
he had been trifled with. He was most insanely irri¬ 
table. He ate his breakfast in silence, replying to the 
usual cheery conversation with monosyllables. Mrs. 
Melton glanced significantly at Mrs. Hocker. “Mr. 
Brawn,” she said, “I wonder if you’d mind stopping by 
the Warren Memorial and getting my umbrella. I 
forgot it Wednesday night. The janitor has it.” 

The tone was so timid, the manner so deprecating, 
that he agreed to do so without thinking. And yet 
it was six or seven blocks out of his way. Women 
loved to have men do little chores for them. Ordin¬ 
arily he would have magnified the opportunity into 
the realization of genuine service, into the certainty 
that he was a most agreeable fellow. 

He walked along the street over toward the car line, 
oblivious of the bright sunshine, of the twittering of 
the birds high up in the trees, of the tootling of a ban¬ 
ana man’s horn. He was feeling very, very bitter. It 
had been more like a telegram than a letter, without 
the glamour that a telegram carries. 


104 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

In the street car there was a buzz of excited con¬ 
versation; men were discussing the action of Congress 
and the imminence of war, “at last.” War! What 
was war to him? 

Friday passed in a cloud of routine. He hardly 
spoke to any one beyond the necessities of business. 
And each trip of the letter carrier left him more sullen, 
more resigned, more convinced than before. At five 
o’clock in the afternoon he got his hat and went out on 
the street, determined to send her a telegram that 
would be a blow in return. He got as far as the 
telegraph office and then decided there was nothing he 
could say. So he returned again to his desk. 

He went home and went early to bed, but could not 
sleep. He heard the clock strike ten, eleven, twelve, 
one, two. 

For some reason he felt better Saturday. It was be¬ 
cause of a trip he had to take across the river perhaps 
—a change from the little, obvious runway that his 
feet had been treading—a sort of magnified “pigs-in- 
clover,” office to court-house to office to court-house. 
He had his lunch in a run-down hotel and the table 
linen was ragged and dirty and the food atrocious, 
greasy and drab. But he enjoyed it. 

At four o’clock he came back to the office. Every 
one had gone. He rummaged about in old files, rooted 
up some stale correspondence, looked on the va¬ 
rious desks to see if by chance anything had 
come for him. The place was very still. It seemed 
like a different place, rather musty and inefficient and 
dull, not at all its everyday look. He went to the win¬ 
dow and gazed down upon the street. The few pedes¬ 
trians seemed aimless and uninteresting. 


JOHN-^O-BRAWN 105 

He decided that he would dine at the club. He 
looked at his watch. It was five o’clock. He shut his 
watch and returned it to his pocket. He sighed. 
And then he walked slowly out of the office to the ele¬ 
vator. As he waited there in the hallway for it, he 
realized how he hated “law.” It was so damned 
respectable and cut-and-dried. Lawyers were always 
polite even when they had murder and burglary in their 
hearts. And they were always waiting for trump 
cards. 

He walked out Fourth Street in a maze, bumping 
into the senseless crowds of women that hung about 
the entrance of the “Five- and Ten-Cent Store” like 
flies about a puddle of molasses. A little farther out 
he encountered the juvenile crowd, girls and boys in 
their ’teens, fresh from the movies, giggling and 
shoving and pushing, filing into a sweet shop where 
they would squat about inadequate tables and guzzle 
pasty indigestibles. Humanity, he decided, was a very 
raw, imperfect thing. 

He was not prepared for what he found in the club. 
Men were clustered about in close little knots, all 
gravely conversing. The pool and billiard tables were 
deserted. No one seemed to recognize him and he 
walked through the hall to the wash-room. One thing 
he was certain of: Phyllida did not care for him, not 
in the slightest. 

He came back out again and wandered into the 
library. About a dozen men, of the younger crowd, 
were standing in the doorway, talking. He caught 
the word, “War.” He stopped and stood there on the 
edge and listened. He learned, with a dim sense of 
having been asleep, that Congress had declared 


io6 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

war, that a state of war even now existed. It seemed 
to him a very impersonal thing, as though it con¬ 
cerned him not at all. One of the men, an officer in 
the First Kentucky Regiment, a National Guard or¬ 
ganization, was laying down some facts to the rest of 
the men who seemed very much impressed. “We’ll 
be getting orders to-morrow, I wouldn’t be surprised.”' 
Then he looked very gravely off into space. 

“What’ll it mean?” asked Brawn of his neighbour. 

The man turned to him sharply—he was a young 
man of prominent family, with plenty of money 
and intolerant, and with a reputation of general 
uselessness. “Mean?” he said. “Means we’ll all 
be going over—pretty quick.” And then he moved 
away. 

Brawn spied Burton. Burton had meant nothing 
to Brawn since that little affair, save something to 
annoy. And Burton was standing over to one side as 
though not a part of the group. Brawn walked over 
and took him by the arm. “Looks like business, eh. 
Burton ?” 

The man turned and looked at him as though sur¬ 
prised from some unusual depth of thought. There 
was no trace of resentment or awkwardness in his face 
when he recognized Brawn. Nor did he seem to be 
worried. His lips stiffened in a tight line. “Business? 
—I’ll say it does.” He looked at Brawn’s necktie 
thoughtfully. “Wonder when they’ll be calling us in? 
Wonder where a fellow could go and enlist—to¬ 
morrow?” 

Brawn was surprised. “Going in?” he inquired. 

“Surely,” said Burton. “Aren’t you?” 

Brawn left him and went out into the hall. He 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 107 

bumped into George Ambrose hurrying away from the 
check-room. 

“Hullo, John,” said Ambrose. “What do you think 
of it?” And then without waiting for Brawn’s 
reply: “But you don’t belong to the Regiment, do 
you?” 

“No,” said Brawn. 

“Neither do I. Sure sorry I didn’t join up last 
fall. Be sittin’ pretty now.—Don’t know if they’ll 
take old relics like me, or not.” 

“Going in?” asked Brawn, his curiosity rising. 

“Am if they’ll take me. Haven’t heard any dope 
yet, have you?” 

Brawn said he had not. 

“Well, have to run along. So long, John.” 

The thing was getting nearer. It was getting to be 
more his affair. He passed a group of old men, old 
codgers of the sixties and seventies. One of them, old 
Mr. Callaway, stopped him on the stairs. 

“How’s the young man?” he said. 

Brawn assured him that he was in tip-top shape. 
Mr. Callaway was another of his father’s friends, and 
quite loquacious. 

“Well,” he continued, “you young fellows’ll have 
to be taking it up where we left off. Too old to go 
myself. Guess you’ll all be shouldering muskets and 
going to France before long.” 

“Guess so, Mr. Callaway.” 

A few minutes later a band started up on the street 
outside and everybody rushed to the door to see what 
was going on. The band was passing along Fourth 
Street and Brawn ran down to the corner to see what 
it meant. It proved to be a Salvation Army band and 


io8 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

the crowd soon dispersed, not being in the mood for 
salvation. Brawn wandered slowly out Fourth Street. 
He was beginning to feel vaguely stirred. America 
was at war. America was at war. Old memories and 
traditions were coming up out of the past. His father 
had been with Morgan. That wasn’t the “U. S. A.” 
exactly, but it was part of it. There had been some old 
forbear in the Mexican campaign, old great-uncle 
Roderick. His people had all taken part in the de¬ 
cisive matters of their day. And this thing was part 
of his day. He suddenly remembered that he had not 
had his supper; he had forgotten it entirely. 

What was there better for him to do, he suddenly 
asked himself? There were no strings to him. Fifty 
years before, there would not have been a moment’s 
pause. The city, the community, was a smaller, more 
closely knit thing, then. In those days the individual 
could not hide himself from public responsibility. Was 
it right that he should try to do so now? It made not 
the slightest difference to any one what became of him. 
But it made a lot of difference what those dim, for¬ 
gotten ghosts of forbears should think of him. . 

“Any leavin’s, Mrs. Melton?” he called gaily as he 
opened the door. 

Mrs. Melton looked bewildered. “Why, it’s after 
seven o’clock. I’ll-” 

“Never mind that,” interrupted Brawn. “I’ll just 
go into your pantry and see if I can get myself some 
scraps.” 

Mrs. Melton followed him, keeping a watchful eye. 

“Oh, Mr. Brawn,” she said, rescuing a tottering 
milk bottle, “isn’t it terrible?” 

“Mmmm,” replied Brawn. 



JOHN-NO~BRAWN 109 

“Do you suppose they’ll be forming another Louis¬ 
ville Legion?” 

“Haven’t heard.” 

“Of course we couldn’t stay out any longer. I just 
hope we’ll go straight in to Berlin.” 

Brawn attacked another sandwich. 

“You’ll not be going in—just yet awhile, will you, 
Mr. Brawn?” 

“Dunno. I might.” He was beginning to enjoy 
himself for the first time in four days. 

Mrs. Melton hung to him to the foot of the stairs, 
after he had assuaged his hunger, suggesting direful 
privations and dangers, but being constantly buoyed 
up by confidence in the invincibility of American arms 
and by her wrath at the German Government, a wrath 
that like a tinder spark glowed and flamed with her 
breath upon it. 

Brawn went upstairs. He started a letter to Phyl- 
lida. He told her coldly what he was going to do. He 
cynically alluded to her propensity for playing with fire 
and to his entire comprehension of such procedure. 
He hoped she would be having a good time. He read 
it over. It was really a pretty good letter. And then 
he tore it up. He had less trouble in going to sleep 
that night. 

Sunday afternoon seemed a long, tiresome prospect. 
So he got out his cutaway coat, his silk hat, and his 
cane and prepared to “do about” a bit. He was feel¬ 
ing frivolous. Promptly at three o’clock he called on 
Betty Hobson to whom he owed a much-overdue dinner 
call. Betty was of the crop of 1916 and holding on 
desperately. She came down the stairs, all groomed 
to the minute in a black velvet afternoon gown, smil- 


110 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

ing and holding up her head in that fresh girlish way 
she had cultivated. She seized him by both hands and 
led him to a sofa in a dim corner of her parlour. 

“I’m so glad you’ve come this afternoon,” she said. 
“I was wondering what had become of you. I was 
afraid you didn’t like me any more.” She gave him 
a long tremulous look up through her lashes. 

Brawn assured her that his devotion had not waned 
in the slightest and cautiously looked about the room. 
It was consistent, consistently shaded in dull rose, 
consistently equipped even to the leather-bound volume 
of Omar Khayyam on the table by the window. 

Betty lolled prettily upon the sofa. Her gown was 
a marvellous fit and it displayed to an obvious advan¬ 
tage her full, exotic figure and her smooth, white 
arms. “I suppose,” she began, “that you’ll be coming 
to tell me good-bye some of these days very soon now.” 

Brawn laughed. “I don’t know. Feeling pretty 
yellow about it somehow. I like my comfort.” 

Her glance glowed like fire. “Oh, I know. That’s 
what you say. But they can’t keep you out one min¬ 
ute.” She sighed and sank back against the cushion, 
away from him. “What will we do, when all you men 
are gone?—It’s terrible.” The buckle of her black 
satin pump seemed to be loosening and she leaned 
forward to straighten it and when she had done so 
she slipped back on the divan, but closer to him by 
inches. Again she raised her face to his and gazed 
at him through lids that were narrowed. “I wish I 
were a man. Staying at home is going to be much the 
harder. You’ll be going down to the train some of 
these days in your uniform and we’ll all be standing 
around and—kissing you good-bye.” She seemed to be 


111 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

suggesting a bit of informal dress rehearsal with her 
face uptilted, her lips quivering a little, and her bosom 
rising and falling perceptibly—and so near. 

“And you’ll be doing recruiting duty, before many 
days, if 1 tell on you,” Brawn said. 

She bit her under lip and sank back into the cushions. 
“It’s not everybody that I’ll miss,” she said, looking 
at him very significantly. And then the doorbell rang 
and they sat in silence, watching each other, and it 
occurred to Brawn how opportune had been the coming 
of the war for Betty’s jaded emotions. It meant a 
wonderful new opportunity to her. 

The maid ushered in Ben Cudd. Cudd had a round, 
fatuous white face, sleepy eyes, and a vast weakness 
for beer. He frequented such functions, formal and 
informal, as promised to develop a high fluid content. 
The combination corkscrew and bottle opener on his 
key ring was a sure-fire joke to be tried on every 
stranger. “Hullo, John,” he called as he squeezed 
Betty’s hand. “Army got you yet?” Immediately 
he sank into the largest and softest chair and crossed 
his legs. “They’re goin’ to have a national draft, 
they say—twenty to thirty—every man that’s physi¬ 
cally able. Reckon they’ll have mercy on my alcoholic 
heart. Bet?” 

She was paying no attention, but watched Brawn, 
who had not resumed his seat. “Why so restless?” 

“Benny’s got me worried. I must be on my way.” 
Already he was weary, his frivolous spell dissolving. 

Her eyes were humid with melancholy as she took 
his hand and held it—longer than necessary. 

“I’ll not wait to be drafted—after your hint to me,” 
he said, but she would not smile. She was making 



112 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

the war very real to herself. He closed the door on 
the boom of Cudd’s heavy laughter. 

The “next” was Romola Wendel. 

Romola was a sweet little thing, likewise 1916 
model. Her family rated a butler, a huge Negro, very 
black and known to everybody as “Rollo.” He was a 
grave darky with a bow. He never committed himself. 
He would see. He ushered Brawn into the parlour, 
a frivolous green one done in Louis Quinze and with 
a huge oil painting of Miss Romola in knee dresses— 
properly juvenile—hanging over the mantel in a heavy 
gold frame. 

Directly, Romola came in. She was petite—^barely 
five feet high—and weighed eighty-seven pounds in the 
aggregate. She wore ruffles whenever she could, had 
the slenderest feet and ankles, a shy smile and occa¬ 
sionally a lisp. She smiled at everything, even when 
she was doubtful if the smiling were proper. She had 
been raised to be charitable. 

She took a seat across the room from John in a 
stiff, uncomfortable chair. She told him how glad she 
was to see him. Her eyes grew round and her little 
round face tried hard to lengthen. “And, oh,” she 
said, “what do you think of the war?” 

Brawn paused at the scope of the question. He 
didn’t know for sure. It was pretty bad, he supposed, 
but it had to come. 

“Yes,” she sighed. “I suppose so.” 

There had evidently been some discussion at the 
family dinner table, for the idea seemed obsessing 
to Romola. Contrary to her usual divergent custom 
she returned to the subject, smiling over at him pleas¬ 
antly: “And will you men all have to go over to France 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 113 

—in ships? It seems such a funny thing to do— 
going all that distance to fight men you have never 
seen.” 

It had not occurred to Brawn as ludicrous and he 
explained to her quietly that it was a matter of ideals 
that was the yeast in the ferment. Romola was vaguely 
unconvinced. War was such a useless thing. 

Without realizing it, Brawn launched into a one¬ 
sided discussion. Ordinarily Romola had passed as a 
shrinking creature, whom one shielded from all sug¬ 
gestion of life and ugliness and struggle. But appar¬ 
ently she had been doing some thinking on her own and 
was interested.., Moreover, she seemed impressed. 
From a didactic expose of the German lack of inter¬ 
national morals. Brawn digressed into their manner of 
waging war. Thence it was a short cry to their atroci¬ 
ties in Belgium. He had seen some hideous prints that 
the French Foreign Office was having passed about— 
subjects which he could but barely touch upon in most 
cases, suggesting the ultimate to her flowerlike curi¬ 
osity. Two bright spots of red appeared in her cheeks 
but she seemed keen for more. Directly he caught 
himself telling her a tale about the German corporation 
which had secured the franchise for refining human 
fats and oils, and which had adopted the singularly 
efficacious method of bundling up the bodies in fagots 
of threes for easier transportation. Midway in the 
story he paused, aghast at his temerity, but Romola 
urged him to go on. 

‘‘I think they ought to chop up the Kaiser into little 
bits,” she protested emphatically when he had finished. 

Brawn sat for a moment in silence, wondering on 
the subtlety of public opinion. It seemed a vast, in- 


114 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

choate, emotional thing, untouched by reason. And 
then a clock boomed five. He had sat for more than 
an hour. He quickly rose to his feet. 

“Are you going in?” asked Romola. 

“I suppose so—if they’ll take me,’’ he replied slowly. 

“Come and see me and tell me about it,’’ she urged. 
And she seemed quite earnest about it. 

“No soft stuff in these women,’’ thought Brawn as 
he started down the street. “They’re all keen for a 
scrap. It’ll be popular, all right, all right.’’ And then 
for a moment he wondered what Phyllida’s attitude 
might be. 

He was tired of calling. The social side of life 
presented no further allurement to him. So he caught 
the street car and rode to the club. Something seemed 
to be driving him. There was nothing in this life about 
Louisville that had the slightest hold on him. He 
might just as well chuck it. 

As he passed through the door of the club he had a 
sudden inspiration. Colonel Hardaway—the old 
colonel he had been chummy with at Estill Springs 
the summer before—lived in Washington. He could 
put him in touch with the real things. The Colonel 
had asked him then why he had not gone into the 
army. 

He walked into the writing room and found a 
vacant table. It struck him at the time that it was an 
abrupt thing to do. But something fired him from 
wfithin. He took up a pen and wrote. He made 
his request terse and to the point. He told the Colonel 
that he wanted to get into the army—that he wanted 
to get in in the shortest and quickest way; he wanted 
to get in the line, wanted no staff work. Would the 



JOHN-NO-BRAWN 115 

Colonel look after his case and advise him what to do, 
at once? 

He addressed the letter, sealed it, and stamped it. 
And then he walked stiffly out into the hall and dropped 
it into the mail box. He had the sensation of having 
taken an irrevocable step. And all his feeling of re¬ 
sponsibility seemed to vanish. He came out into the 
vestibule of the club feeling as free as a wild animal in 
the woods, and quite as unprotected. He had cast 
himself into the hopper. 

He got on the car and went home, flushed and up¬ 
lifted and a little solemn. The Brawns were no slacker 
family. 

Mrs. Melton rxiet him at the door. 

“Here’s a special delivery for you,” she said, and 
handed him a letter. 

Somehow it failed to stir him as it should have. He 
looked at it curiously. Then he thanked Mrs. Melton. 
He took it upstairs to his room, then he walked over 
to the window and in the dying light he opened it and 
read: 

John Dearest: 

I’ve been wondering why it was I have had no line from you. 
Things have been impossible here—more so than I even expected. 

And then came a few lines describing the place and 
the people. 

I didn’t tell you why we came here and I shan’t now—but later, 
some time. Only it’s all impossible. I thought to-night I had 
got to the end of my rope. And then I thought of you and your 
old silly steadfastness and that I could depend on that steadfast¬ 
ness and I felt better—loads. 

I couldn’t have been like you, Job. Not for one minute could 


116 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

I. I’d had to have things explained to me—drawn out for me on 
paper. But you never question a thing. And you do care for me, 
don’t you? 

Write to me and tell me what you are doing—what you are 
thinking. And trust me a little longer. We’ll be home in about 
two weeks. I’ll tell you about things then—if I can. 

As ever, 
Phyllida. 


CHAPTER XI 


^WEEK later the following letter came: 

/ \ Dear Job: 

Our mission is over. The pleasure trip est fini. 
We’re due to leave next Tuesday and w^e’ll be taking the day train. 
That puts us in at seven-thirty. 

I’ve been tight with the news, haven’t I? But it’s the kind you 
wouldn’t v’ant to hear and it’s the kind I haven’t wanted to spread. 

If anybody ever asks you if Phyllida May is a modern, up-to- 
date and up-and-coming young woman, tell them, “No.” And 
spell it with a capital N. It may be all right to call spades 
spades and to look at privacies with a sort of indifference—the 
scholarly, scientific manner, you know, but- 

But I’m raving. Perhaps you haven’t heard. Mama and 
Arthur have had a split up. It’s not pretty. The reason for our 
coming up here—well. I’d better save that till I see you. 

Thank God you’re a fossil. Job. I revere your venerable bones. 
I’m off clever, fresh, sparkling people for life. 

Keep the brim on your hat. You’ll need it. I bought a new 
coat suit and I do want you to look me over in it. 

As ever, 

Phil. 

A curious quiver passed over Brawn as he read 
these lines. So that had been it. What had Mrs. Cole¬ 
man gone to Chicago to get? What sort of evidence? 
Just w^here did Wally, with his buckskin gloves and 
walking stick, come in? And then a warm reproach 
came flooding. What kind of a man was he to question 


117 



118 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

Phil? Obviously she was not going to talk about her 
mother. 

Unfortunately he missed the train on its incoming. 
He was terribly upset when he realized it. His watch 
had stopped and when he reached the station he found 
only a lonesome group of taxi-drivers and red-caps 
and a few straggling unfortunates such as perennially 
inhabit railroad stations. A look at the clock assured 
him of his misfortune. What would Phil think? 
That he was holding off because of the news she had 
sent him? 

He jumped into a taxi and was whirled away south¬ 
ward. 

Phyllida met him at the door and he felt a leap 
within him as soon as he saw her. She was even more 
beautiful than his memory of her. All thought of the 
past weeks was washed from his mind. 

“Well!” she said. “A careless suitor, Pd say.” 
She led the way into the parlour. 

“Watch stopped,” explained Brawn, a bit breathless. 
“Must have missed you about five minutes. How are 
you?” 

She was standing by the table with one hand resting 
on it and she was looking at him steadily. “We just 
got in, I haven’t been diagnosed yet.” 

“How do you mean?” He came and slipped his 
arm about her waist. “I got your letter,” he said. 

Quietly she drew away. “Let’s sit down.” She 
pointed to a chair. 

Brawn complied, wonderingly. 

“I wasn’t sure you’d show up or not,” she smiled at 
him. And Brawn’s heart smote him. 

“Why a-” 



JOHN-NO-BRAWN 119 

“Oh, I know. Maybe you think I don’t know 
what it is to be on the ragged edge of ‘being out.’ 
George Ambrose didn’t stop coming because he 
couldn’t afford the carfare. Or because he didn’t have 
the time. 

“Phil, I haven’t heard a thing outside. There’s 

_n 

“That’s not exactly what I mean. I can’t say just 
what I do mean exactly. I shouldn’t be saying anything. 
But there are some girls that men just cannot look at 
without giving them a beckon with their shoulder and 
a wink. And there’s nothing the girl can do to pre¬ 
vent it.” 

Brawn was aghast. “Why, Phil. What’s come over 
you? There’s no excuse for your talking like that. 
You didn’t get me out here to tell me that, I hope?” 

“I didn’t get you out here at all. You came.” Her 
voice suddenly softened and she shifted her gaze from 
his face. “I just thought I had better come out with it. 
You see a woman’s different. In some subtle fashion 
she is of the same fabric with her background.—There. 
That’s awful of me.—At least that is the estimate the 
world puts upon her. Especially when she is a weak 
dinger like me.—Job!” She turned to him suddenly. 
“Can you get me something to do?—^A sizable job for 
a girl with a strong back and a feeble mind?” 

“Why, I might. How about Fielding’s?” 

“More of a job than that even. You see, I have to 
take care of myself now.” 

“Why, yes, I suppose I could. What do you want 
to do?” 

“You see, it was all right living off of some one else’s 
money—almost anybody else’s money so long as there 



120 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

was enough of it. That’s the kind of woman I was. 
But I can’t live off my mother’s alimony.” 

Brawn was silent. He realized what it was costing 
her to tell him these things. And in spite of himself 
something within him instinctively recoiled. Phyllida’s 
cheeks were pink. 

“However,” she continued, “here I am taking it for 
granted it will make no difference with you—that you 
are a thick or thin friend of mine. Well, never mind. 
Take it or leave it. It’s not hard to say that you can’t 
find a job for a person like myself.” 

“Phil.” He got up and came and stood before her 
and held her with his eyes. “Listen. I know I deserve 
your thinking almost anything of me. But let me tell 
you this: As long as you’ll let me. I’ll stand by you. 
And anything I can-” 

“Speech! Speech!” she cried. The tears glistened 
in her eyes. “See! I’m a hysterical fool. But to tell 
you the truth, these past two weeks have been hell. Job. 
You see. Mama wanted to get some evidence to use on 
Arthur and she was following up a lead somebody got 
for her here and every day there would come to the 

hotel the worst specimens- But forget it! How 

about you. Job? Been hitting the ball?” 

“Every day. Made some difference not seeing you, 
though.” 

“What in the world did you do in those thirty-odd 
drab years before I came into your life?” 

He grinned. “ You found me the wreck I was.” 

Silence. Brawn could hear the dull tread of foot¬ 
steps on the floor above and the occasional hum of 
distant conversation. There was a musty staleness in 
the air of the room, for a breath of “Blackberry 




I2I 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

Winter” had prevented the raising of the windows. 
Suddenly he was overcome with a desire to take her 
from this place. She sat, staring at the carpet, her 
profile silhouetted against the lamplight, and touched 
with an ethereal wanness. There was a thrill in his 
heart. He was the nearest person to her. That was 
evident. There would always be a mystery, a glamour 
about her, he thought, elusive, undefinable, at times in¬ 
articulate as she was. And that loveliness—loveliness 
of spirit as well as of body—might be his for the ask¬ 
ing if only- 

She suddenly looked up and the old expression was 
again in her eyes. “There I That’s settled. You see, 
I wanted your friendship and the only way I knew how 
to get it was to ask for it. And I’ve virtually thrown 
myself at your head. There’s a queer streak in our 
blood, that way, I guess. But I’ve got it, haven’t I?” 

“What?” 

“Your friendship.” 

“It’s more than that I wanted to give you all along.” 

“Tut, tut. Job.” 

“The chance to show it all the time,” he went on 
doggedly. “It takes more than the mere recognition 
of friendship for that. We’ve understood each other, 
Phil. From the first. I’ve felt it.” 

“Job!—You romantic liar! Why, I haven’t even un¬ 
derstood myself. And as for you—fathers in heaven 1 
—Yes, you have rare insight. But I love you for it. 
And you do such delightfully obvious things. And 
you’re honest. And I can count on you when I’m 
down in spite of the horrid things I said awhile ago. 
I oughtn’t to marry you. Job. I’d make you miserable. 
But some day I’m afraid I’ll have to—if you ask me.” 



122 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

“I’m not so sure you’ll do that after all, Phil.” 

“Oh ho!” she shouted.softly. “So that’s where the 
wind blows. Yes. A man will not be forced. Not 
for anything in the world. And what might your 
manly purpose be? Do you propose selfishly to exist 
on your ill-gotten gains and not assume the cares of a 
family?” Even as she spoke he could not feel for sure 
that she had made up her mind about things—that she 
might not be just as elusive as ever. 

“That’s the point. I mayn’t be earning them—so 
very much longer,” he said soberly. 

She looked up quickly, her manner changing. 
“How’s that. Job?” 

He paused before replying. “I’ve gone in the 
army. I’ve—sent in my name.” 

They sat there, looking at each other, with the pink 
glow from the china lamp-shade sending little circles 
of barred shadows across them, and for the life of 
him he could not tell at the moment whether he were 
sorry, or insanely happy, or afraid. So close do these 
prime emotions lurk, one to the other. 

Then she smiled at him, a crooked, uncertain sort 
of smile. “Why, of course,” she said. “You would. 
Why, there’s nothing else to do, is there?” She rose 
to her feet and he did likewise. “You see. Job,” she 
went on, “how twisted all my sense of values is. It 
gives me an idea. I can see a way out—for me, too.” 

“How’s that?” said Brawn. 

She was walking toward the door and he stood by 
his chair watching her, unwilling. “Oh, I’ll have to 
think about it first.—But, Job, you’ll have to go now. 
I—I can’t think when you’re sitting there, looking at 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 123 

He came and got his hat. As he stood beside her, 
feeling somehow that he was divining her innermost 
thoughts, and yet conscious of a certain impending 
curtain that might drop and obscure her at any mo¬ 
ment, he had a sense of what a curious drama he and 
she wxre playing. Even in his shaken emotion it was 
m.ost intensely interesting to him. It kept him con¬ 
sistent in his part. And he made no effort to kiss her, 
to take her into his arms, which would have been the 
conventional thing to do. He behaved as he felt she 
would have wished him to behave. He took her hand 
and pressed it a moment. “I’m glad you’ve come 
home,” he said. 

She was still very thoughtful. Almost she had not 
heard him. Then she looked up. “It’s going to be a 
tight, personal little old war,” she replied. “Good¬ 
night, John.” 


CHAPTER XII 


T HERE’S the shirts, the flowers, the license, 
the ring, the railroad tickets—let’s see. Have 
I forgotten anything, Mowbray?” Brawn 
stopped dead in his tracks and addressed the anaemic, 
blond young man who accompanied him. It was nearly 
noon and August and sizzling hot. “Seems to me I 
had six things to attend to. What have I forgotten?” 

The young man bored into him with a look of in¬ 
tensity. Then his face lighted. “It’s the cards. You 
wanted to stop at Fielding’s and. get the cards—the 
new ones you ordered.” He paused and watched 
Brawn’s face for a premonitory guidance as to what 
would be done next. 

“So I have,” replied Brawn with satisfaction. 
“Well, no harm done. Can get ’em this afternoon. 
There’s no hurry.” Stiffening quickly and with a look 
of tremendous gravity, he acknowledged the salute of 
a private soldier as the latter passed them. He did it 
a little too quickly, a little too stifily, he thought, 
when the man had passed. “If it’s just the cards. I’m 
all right. Let’s go home.” Slowly he resumed his 
way and as he walked he drew out his handkerchief 
and mopped his face. “Say, Mowbray,” he added, 
suddenly turning again to his companion, “have I 
sweated up the tips of my collar?—The uniform collar, 
I mean. If you sweat up this serge stuff the stain never 
does come out.” 


124 


JOHN--NO-BRAWN 125 

“No,” said Mowbray after a careful scrutiny. “It’s 
all right so far. Pull your stock up a little higher. 
It’ll protect it.” Mowbray was taking the occasion 
even more gravely than Brawn. “Have to wear those 
—those—those blouses all summer?” he inquired. 

“On dress, yes—all the time. In the field we wear 
only our shirts.” 

Mowbray speculated on the tropical neglige of 
American troops. “Here’s a car,” he cried suddenly, 
darting for the curb. 

But Brawn was unmoved. “Let’s walk,” he sug¬ 
gested coolly. 

“It’s ten blocks.” 

“What’s ten blocks? By the time you’ve marched 
over the whole state of Indiana with a pack on your 
back, a few odd miles more or less won’t make any 
difference in your life.” 

Mowbray abandoned the car—Brawn’s manner was 
bristling with assurance—and together they resumed 
their hegira with long swinging strides. Every few 
minutes Mowbray would catch a surreptitious glance 
at Brawn, an inquiring glance, in a way, to see if by 
chance his companion showed the slightest signs of 
wear and tear. For himself, he was consumed by a rag¬ 
ing heat that reduced his clothing to a sodden pulp, 
sent a scorching and stinging fire into his face, and set 
his heart to pounding in his throat. And Brawn 
marched on relentlessly with a slight scowl on his face. 
Mowbray was an accepted candidate for the second 
officers’ training camp. He therefore had an open 
mind on military matters. 

“Hike much?” he inquired at length. 

Brawn was watching out of the corner of his eye the 


126 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

progress of two interesting-looking young women 
across the street. “Eight hours a day,” he responded 
laconically. “Sometimes at night somebody would 
remember and take us out for a few more miles.” 
The young women proved to be strangers and Brawn 
turned his attention exclusively to Mowbray. “They 
must be expecting to open up the war when we get in. 
If we can’t march fifteen or twenty miles a day we 
won’t keep fit. Have to march over into Germany 
and Russia and down into Spain. You want to go in 
the artillery, Mowbray.” 

Mowbray felt a chill spasm pass over his spare 
frame. “Don’t know how I managed to get by ’em, 
anyway. I was underweight and my right eye is on the 
bum—twenty fifteen, wasn’t that it?—One of the 
doctors, the Captain, said I had a hernia.’/ He plugged 
along thoughtfully with the perspiration rolling down 
his cheeks. “But I got in.” He smiled wanly at 
Brawn. 

“They don’t know what they’re doing, half of them. 
That’s why they make us hike. Keeps us busy. Just 
make up your mind that you’ve more intelligence than 
two thirds of the generals and colonels and stick to 
your knitting and don’t answer back and they’ll give 
you a commission. Only you’ll have to learn how to 
hike. It’s the mark of superiority.” 

“Did they give out many commissions, John?” in¬ 
quired Mowbray after several minutes of silence. 

“About 50 per cent. Surely did weed them out 
there for a time. You want to stand in with 
your company commander. I had the inside track 
with mine. Had hard luck, though. My hobnail shoes 
were too big for me and they rubbed a hole in my heel. 



JOHN-NO-BRAWN 127 

I had to drop out in some of the hikes. Some of the 
other men lost out for less than that. As it was I 
only got—this.” 

“I’ll be tickled to death with a second lieuten¬ 
ancy,” Mowbray breathed. “What do you have to 
do to wear boots?” 

They finally reached Compton Street and a shaded 
stretch of pavement. And in a few more moments 
Brawn was ringing the familiar door bell. The two 
men stood posed on the flagging of the vestibule and 
mopped their foreheads. Then the door opened. 

“Come in, come in,” cried Mrs. Melton v/ith strained 
heartiness. “You’ve not been walking in this sun, have 
you, Mr. Brawn?—Pardon me, lieu— ten —ant Brawn. 
—Oh dear, oh dear!” 

“Mr. Hicks, Mrs. Melton.” They stepped into a 
delightful coolness. “Mr. Hicks is to be my best 
man.” Mr. Hicks looked more like a beet peeled for 
pickling. He shook Mrs. Melton’s hand without en¬ 
thusiasm. 

Mrs. Melton stood against the wall and gazed with 
speculative eyes. The manner was compelling. “So 
this is the day!” she said slowly and softly. 

It was unescapable. Brawn paused and turned, one 
foot on the bottom step. “This is the day,” he ad¬ 
mitted, and smiled at her. 

Her eyes were travelling over him from his damp, 
matted hair to the dust-streaked leather puttees. 
“Your soldier clothes are becoming to you,” she de¬ 
cided impersonally. 

“Oh, this,” said Brawn, “is just a duty uniform. 
You must see the other one I have upstairs. Pretty 
nifty, eh Mowbray?” 


128 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

Mrs. Melton bit her lip. Brawn was standing with 
one foot on the stair, smiling at her kindly, and then 
her lips began to tremble. Suddenly the tears welled 
into her eyes and Brawn was stricken with dismay. Her 
face began to work though she kept her eyes steadfastly 
upon Brawn’s face. ‘Oh,” she faltered tremulously, 
“I don’t—see how—it’s possible.” And giving her 
head a little shake she fled back down the hall. 

Brawn followed Mowbray Hicks up the stairs and 
into his old room. He stripped off his coat and collar, 
his shoes and his puttees, and flung himself upon the 
bed and stared for a long time at the ceiling. Mow¬ 
bray meanwhile busied himself with wandering about 
the room, inspecting the pictures. 

“They all take it like that,” commented Brawn at 
length. “They’re always thinking they can look behind 
the screen.—You don’t act as if you were tired. Why 
don’t you sit down?” 

Mowbray gave a coloured print a detailed scrutiny, 
bending far over the better to see it. Directly he 
turned about and walked over to a rocking chair, a 
black scowl on his face. “Emotional,” he said shortly. 
His voice was deep and vibrant. 

There was an uninterrupted burr of voices in the 
parlours of 1324 Janvrin Street that night. The Cole¬ 
mans had thrown the ground-floor front rooms to¬ 
gether by the simple expedient of pushing wide the 
folding doors and in the centre of each room were 
clustered groups of men and women talking to each 
other with that restraint that is the Siamese Twin to 
formal dress among the middle-aged and the elderly. 
The lights in the chandeliers were a bit dim and yet 
they exposed the ancient fixtures most unkindly; fixtures 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 129 

that had been originally meant for gas. The corrugat¬ 
ed, saucer-like shades looked wan in the light. Palms 
and twisted ropes of smilax softened naked corners and 
tall vases of sumptuous peonies, placed here and there 
on the mantels and cabinets and upon every piece of 
furniture possessed of a flat top, brightened up the 
chambers as fresh linen brightens up an old suit. The 
little knots of people were not hard, fast knots, but 
broke up and intermingled one with another, buzzing 
agreeably the while. There was a look of charitable 
and happy expectancy upon the faces of all. In short 
it was not a strictly smart affair. Every now and then 
the front door would open and waft inward a fresh 
cool smell of grass—for the lawn had been freshly 
clipped only that afternoon. With the smell would 
come a delightful coolness and the soft sound of swish¬ 
ing water across a hot pavement. Once, could be 
heard quite distinctly, as the door swung inward, the 
sound of the street-sprinkler thumping with his stick on 
the hollow barrel of the sprinkler tank. And each 
fresh arrival would bring to the widening group his 
increment of smile and expectant greeting. 

As the evening progressed it was noticeable that the 
crowd assembled was not a stereotyped crowd. There 
was quite a liberal sprinkling of elderly people, a uni¬ 
form or two, some ravishing youth and beauty, some 
quite eccentric ensembles. There were the Reverend 
and Mrs. Tinker; the former with his booming, cheery 
voice, his graying hair, his upright carriage, his near¬ 
sighted eyes; Mrs. Tinker smiling a bit vaguely and 
wishing that her two hundred and forty pounds might 
be more generously supported than by two inadequate 
f'eet, but happy and friendly and with but one worldly 



130 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

concern, namely, who should be predestined to motor 
them home. And there was old Mr. Wabnitz, quite 
deaf, and smelling a bit distantly of hot, orthodox 
cooking, and blinking expectantly at the door every 
time it opened, meantime speculating deeply on the 
decadence of the marriage convention. And there was 
Mr. Hodges with his asthma, gallantly forgetting all 
discomfort as he stood by the buffet holding Betty 
Hobson’s errant attention by sheer force of his gal¬ 
lantry. And there were the cousins from Fayette 
County, and the spinster trilogy: Miss Jenkins, Miss 
Blunk and the lumberman’s helper; and Charlie Cun¬ 
ningham and Major Crobin—a youth of twenty-six— 
tall and straight and resplendent and not feeling quite 
sure just what the manner of a major ought to be, and 
therefore very cautious and circumspect and solemn. 
And finally—with a belated inwafting of the door— 
the Reverend Mr. Dollard, with his clerical collar and 
carrying a small valise, came breathing through his 
nose and carefully and modestly watching his step 
across the dim hall carpet to forbidden and unexplored 
regions of back hall. There was an immediate change 
in the pitch and timbre of the parlour buzzing upon 
his arrival. And every now and then there would be 
a short period of complete silence. 

The clock on the dining-room mantel struck eight. 
The hush was absolute. And then came a stirring from 
the hall and heads were lifted and necks strained. A 
young man in uniform came and stretched a white rib¬ 
bon across the front room, crowding the guests into the 
back parlour. There was whispered speculation as 
to who he might be. 

And then came another sound—a soft rustling— 


JOHN-N 0 -BRAWN 131 

from the hall, and then four persons came walking 
slowly, all abreast, into the parlour. 

On the left came Phyllida on the arm of a withered 
old man in a rusty dress suit and wearing an old-fash¬ 
ioned turn-down collar. His legs were bowed and very 
thin and he was not too steady on them. His hair, 
satiny and white as snow, was brushed back from his 
forehead and there was an arrogant expression on his 
lined old face. At his appearance, the buzz sprang up 
again in the back parlour, then slowly died away. The 
whisper came that it was old Captain Jarrup, Phyl- 
lida’s great-uncle from the Confederate Veteran’s 
Home in Pewee Valley. 

On the right stalked John Brawn and his best man, 
Mowbray. It was an awkward moment and one that 
had met much previous criticism. But the lay-out of 
the rooms and the narrowness of the hall had permitted 
of no other arrangement, and the four of them ar¬ 
rived at the improvised altar at exactly the same time. 
There, the captain stepped modestly back. And Mow¬ 
bray, felt, of a sudden, most treacherously and nakedly 
exposed. For his costume did not harmonize; his 
shoes were fearfully wide and fearfully yellow; the 
collar of his khaki blouse was two inches bigger around 
than his new cambric stock and it gaped so that he 
could stick his chin into it, or so he imagined. More¬ 
over, his blouse and trousers were not of the same 
colour, for the blouse was a borrowed one and yellow¬ 
ish, while the trousers were fresh from the tailor’s and 
were undoubtedly green. And a mist kept gathering 
on his glasses. 

A wedding ceremony is a breathless, dewy thing, like 
sunrise on new grass. It marches in the same deathless 


132 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

band of memories with Spring and Youth and Hope. 
It is therefore Beauty nigh to tears. Phyllida wore 
white satin—and a veil. And John filled out his uni¬ 
form bravely, so that there was never the slightest 
thought of a wrinkle. His new cordovan puttees were 
polished to the ultimate shine that leather will take— 
the bow in his legs was hardly noticeable. 

The hush that settled over the two rooms was more 
than a hush of expectancy. A something else seemed to 
hover over their heads. Into the hearts of every man 
and woman standing there, came an unmistakable 
sense of the great Uncertainty; and likewise in the 
two backs with unanimity presented, the answer to it: 
complete disregard. Their replies, following the Rev¬ 
erend Mr. Bollard’s promptings, and coming in the 
stillness like drops of water falling into a cut-glass 
bowl, merely indorsed this disregard. They knelt. 
The Reverend Mr. Dollard pronounced the words and 
they rose to their feet and turned about and faced 
the gathering. On the face of each was a look of 
expectancy, a rather eager looking ahead. It was 
noticeable. And for the moment there was not 
the usual breaking in of friends and congratu¬ 
latory relatives. Instead, all seemed to hold back, 
and a slight whispering arose in the far corners of 
the rooms. 

Then Mrs. Coleman, restraining herself no longer, 
flung herself upon them with a cry and clutched her 
daughter in a most untidy embrace. Brawn had a well- 
nigh irresistible stirring of revulsion. Mrs. Coleman 
buried her face on Phyllida’s shoulder and her back 
shook and heaved. She was wearing an elaborate 
evening dress of lavender and satin that was tight and 


133 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

cut fearfully low. Her back and arms, whitened to 
the hue of chalk, needed of all things a thorough 
bloodletting, a thorough cleansing. She looked as if 
she might not even bleed red. But Brawn’s feeling 
passed with the instant and directly they were swept 
into the breakfast room where the bride’s table had 
been spread. “We’ve got to have a fussy wedding. 
Job,” Phyllida whispered to him as they crossed the 
threshold and stood gazing at the cake and the candles 
and the decorations. 

What followed then was merely a blurring picture to 
Brawn. There were laughter and foolish speech and an 
indeterminate sense of food passing his lips—somehow 
the small iced cakes w^ere more palatable to him than 
anything else. He ate five of them. And every now 
and then he would catch a look at Phyllida and she 
would look back at him, and he would be wondering of 
what she was thinking. And before he knew it he was 
waiting in the upstairs hall for her. In her travelling 
suit she joined him and together they came down the 
stairs and there was a bit of cheering and some hand¬ 
clapping and a babble of congratulations and advice 
and best wishes and a handful or two of rice. But of 
boisterousness—not a trace. The last thing that 
Brawn seemed to remember as they stood for a mo¬ 
ment in the vestibule was the face of Mowbray Hicks, 
standing there holding the door open, with his glossy 
yellow hair slicked back across his forehead, his 
glasses and his enormous, ill-fitting collar. He was 
staring after them, wide-eyed, solemn—almost fear¬ 
ful. 

And then, down the steps, off into a warm dark 
stretch with here and there a flashing light and the 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 


calls of chauffeurs springing up of a sudden, reached 
the night. Three days! Three days! Three rap¬ 
turous days with the woman beside him. A warm, 
alluring prospect! Three days of understanding and 
discovery 1 And after that- 



CHAPTER XIII 


J OHN BRAWN fell into the whirlpool. And hav¬ 
ing so fallen he had no chance to speculate on the 
sensations incident thereto. At times he would 
find ideas pecking away in his head' quite apart from 
the mad business of war. 

He was sent to Texas, to San Antonio, to be as¬ 
signed there to the Ninetieth Division that was to be 
formed. He left Louisville on the night train for St. 
Louis. There was a blurr of blue-black shadows and 
the flash and sputter of the arc lights about the plat¬ 
form. There were little groups of tense, emotional 
men and women here and there, in the middle of each 
a khaki uniform. There were much breathless run¬ 
ning about and the shouts of porters and transfer men, 
and a stream of incoming passengers that, as they 
passed these little groups with their khaki nuclei, gave 
them curious and interested glances. Beyond the edge 
of the station shed gleamed a patch of stars, soft and 
peaceful and winking, and every now and then in the 
lull there would come creeping up the mutter of the 
Falls churning away at the rocks, off to the north. 
Brawn and Phyllida stood away to themselves, with¬ 
out speaking—they had come alone—and though the 
surge of people beat to and fro about them, they 
seemed unmoved. Then some one was calling the 


136 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

train and Brawn felt a bit dazed. He heard Phyllida’s 
voice, felt the pressure of her lips on his—light, cool, 
steady—looked into her eyes an infinitesimal moment, 
and was swept away. “Remember that I’m fixed, you 
know. Look out for yourself,’’ came floating to his 
ears, and then there was a kaleidoscope of moving fig¬ 
ures, a thick blue cloud in a stuffy smoker, much jab¬ 
bering and laughing, the roar once more of the Falls 
through the open window, much nearer and more in¬ 
sistent, and then the lurch of the starting train. A 
brief passing of an army of winking lights below them 
and to the right as they swung out upon the bridge, a 
steady warm breeze blowing down the river and two 
twinkling eyes approaching beneath a blurred column 
of smoke that melted off into the gray, and the thought: 
“It’s the last time I may be seeing it, perhaps’’—such 
was the passing. 

Company I, Three Hundred and Fifty-Ninth In¬ 
fantry, claimed him upon arrival. He was at once 
lost in a bewildering maze of duties, of cross purposes. 
The army seemed nothing but a huge game of getting 
out of trouble. The Regulations and the Drill Manual 
seized hold on his brain and held it fast. The men 
were green, fresh from the ranches of Texas and the 
oil fields of Oklahoma. Up through the School of 
the Soldier and the School of the Squad he took them; 
he wore his voice to a shred and his temper to a fila¬ 
ment. It was “Oh, Lieutenant, this—’’ and “Oh, 
Lieutenant, that—.’’ He wondered if Captain Shields 
did any work at all. There came French lieutenants 
with their grenade manuals; there came English cap¬ 
tains and sergeant-majors who laid down the doctrines 
of machine gunnery and bayonet practice and were 


137 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

dogmatic to the point of intolerance about it. Brawn 
forgot Louisville, forgot law, forgot there was a war 
in Europe for long stretches at a time, forgot some¬ 
times there was a woman he called his wife. It was 
“Squads right, march,” and “Sir, the guard is formed,” 
and “Prepare for inspection”—a thousand biting 
phrases burnt like raw flame into his consciousness 
along with a carking fear lest he be doing something 
wrong. 

Spring came unheralded—the spring of 1918. 
There were whispered rumours of entrainment, ru¬ 
mours escaping like heady vapours through the seams 
of a bursting cask. And they crept into the camp with 
their miasmic toxines, stewing and moiling and sug¬ 
gesting, brewing in men’s minds a devil’s brew, filling 
hearts to bursting, stretching nerves to the breaking. 
It was quite uncalled for, quite inappropriate, the 
order that Brawn got on the morning of May 15th— 
telling him to report to the Depot Brigade, for duty. 
It was almost an hour before the significance of the 
order dawned upon him. He could not understand. 
Why, he had been getting by in fine style; they had 
almost nothing against him, merely the merest of 
trifles. His captain had left him almost a free hand 
and his major—well, he was on the closest terms with 
the major. They used to argue nightly—their rooms 
were adjoining—on politics and finance. Brawn had 
had to explain in detail the workings of the Federal 
Reserve Banking Law one evening before he could get 
the major to yield his point. 

At first he felt numbed and helpless, almost like get¬ 
ting over a drunk. And then he had a swelling 
of resentment and an uncertain sense of putting off the 


138 JOHN-N 0 -BRAWN 

waiting for a longer time. He said very little about 
it in his letter to Phyllida. (Phyllida had gone into 
the Red Cross and was stationed at Camp Sherman. 
They had arranged it before he had left.) And then 
he plunged again into the fury of preparation. If 
anything his duties were even more manifold, more 
nagging, petty and exacting. There was a mountain 
of paper work to be climbed over daily: service rec¬ 
ords, insurance records, reports. Down through chan¬ 
nels would come the most pressing calls for reports 
on the number of men available for drill, for guard, 
for transfer, for discharge under “S. C. D.” Head¬ 
quarters would want to know immediately how many 
men had had experience as motor mechanics, how 
many men liked to sing, how many Conscientious Ob¬ 
jectors refused to carry arms—every conceivable re¬ 
portable thing. There would be a tremendous im¬ 
patience evident and the work would stop momentarily 
until the information was returned, only to be followed 
by another request' more trifling, more insistent than 
before. There were countless inspections of barracks 
and men. A burnt match on the drill field was enough 
to raise a storm; a spot on a man’s mess kit meant a 
reprimand for the company officer. It was a time of 
tremendous rush. Increments from the draft were 
coming in like vast waves at flood tide. Every four 
weeks there would be an entirely new company, and 
with each change would come nights of paper work, 
getting service records ready. Each service record 
called for twenty-one initials, to say nothing of the 
respective endorsements—all required to be in the 
commanding officer’s own handwriting. It was to in¬ 
sure his exact personal supervision over every detail 


139 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

in every man’s record. Frequently there would be 
from two hundred and fifty to three hundred men to 
be transferred over night. The commanding officer 
rarely saw the service records on such occasions. 
Every man in the company office would be busy sign¬ 
ing initials—the initials of the commanding officer. 
Once there was a terrific upheaval owing to a difference 
in opinion as to where the endorsement regarding the 
amount of insurance that the man carried should be 
stamped. One group held it should be in the* blank 
space on page nine; another group, the group receiv¬ 
ing the transferred increment, insisted that it should 
be on page seven, in fact produced a brigade order to 
support its views. The major in command of the first 
group likewise produced an order from another source 
but likewise irrefutable. The earth quaked. The 
war, for a moment, stood still. And twelve hundred 
men were homeless, loafing about against the barrack 
walls until the matter was settled—stormily. For a 
time Brawn thought he would go mad from the pres¬ 
sure. There were so many orders to be observed that 
it kept one company clerk busy seeing that each com¬ 
pany officer saw the latest word on each subject and 
then filing the order away so that it could be found 
again as soon as it was rescinded. And all the time 
there were drill and inspection and games for morale 
and lectures and special training and reports. It was 
a terrible machine, with the cogwheels rough cast and 
poorly fitting, but impelled from behind by an irresist¬ 
ible force. It was no place for a sensitive nature, nor 
a sullen one. The great marvel was the spirit of the 
men. They sped through the machine for the most 
part silently and were gone. 


140 JOHN-NO-B RAWN 

In September there appeared the first shoots of a 
new division, the Eighteenth. And there came news 
of the departed Ninetieth, glorious news, disturbing 
news. It had been in action. It had carried its objec¬ 
tive. It had lost heavily. The war moved suddenly 
nearer. It stood, a dark red figure, on the horizon. 
Brawn wondered, one evening as he read a scrap of pa¬ 
per about the St. Mihiel, how he might have been far¬ 
ing if that order had not come through for him. Then 
one day there came an order with a long list of names. 
In the list was his name. He and the rest were to 
report for duty on the following morning at the head¬ 
quarters of the Eighteenth Division—the new one. 
Once again the wheel clicked as it moved on. And 
then came again the sombre, business-like, calmer prep¬ 
aration for the inevitable, instead of the madness of 
the clearing house. 

One night in late September, Brawn sat in the Red 
Cross hut idly looking over an illustrated magazine. 
It was several months old but interesting in spite of its 
age. One of the events of interest depicted there was 
the sinking of the transport Carpathia. There were 
two or three pictures of survivors and their rescuers. 
Brawn idly turned the pages. In the script appeared 
a short account, and then a list of names. He scanned 
the list. He came to the name, “Ambrose, George— 
Louisville, Kentucky.” Softly he laid the paper down, 
rose to his feet and walked out of the hut. The im¬ 
port of war sped home. He had been preparing for 
a year—for more than a year. But his time would 
be coming. He had been spared for a year—used for 
a year. George Ambrose—had been wasted. 
Drowned in the water in April. He had not even 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 141 

known that Ambrose had gone in. And then the sys¬ 
tem closed in over him and he forgot again. 

Time surged relentlessly on. The division was whip¬ 
ping into shape. He was living the same thing over 
again. Only instead of trench warfare, they were 
going back to the old open formations of musketry and 
manoeuvring. Pershing was going to force a new 
method on the Boche. 

Out of an open sky came the Armistice. The wheels 
slowed down. It was like winding a watch up to 
the limits of the mainspring and then forgetting to 
wind it at all. For a short time the drilling persisted. 
But no one took much interest. There were frequent 
rumours that the Eighteenth would be sent overseas 
anyway, as there was no certainty as to how the Ger¬ 
mans would behave. But things were getting slacker. 
They went out for two weeks on the rifle range and 
dawdled about. Men were going A. W. O. L. now. 
Rarely had they done so before. Then came a flood 
of requests for discharge. There was a short period 
of uncertainty and then all of a sudden the authority 
came through and men were filtering out slowly and 
vaguely, not in the whirlwind manner of their arrival. 
It was a most curious time. 

Some officers put in for their discharge and were 
let go. It made Brawn suddenly restless. But there 
was nothing for him to go home to. Phyllida’s let¬ 
ters coming at irregular and infrequent intervals 
showed a change in attitude. There was not the lofty 
enthusiasm in their tone. But the Brawns were at 
least making out as they were and there was a lot to be 
done in the army, still. So John let things drift. 

The influenza epidemic came and went leaving death 


142 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

and ruin in its wake. Christmas came, a belated feast. 
It was as festive as a cold Sunday supper eaten from 
the ice-box. January slipped past and February with 
the division dwindling to skeleton size, and weakened 
by the anaemia of indifference. Little shoots of grass 
were peeping in fence corners; the crocuses were bloom¬ 
ing in the front yards of houses in the town. There 
came a softness in the air, the premonition of spring, 
and the nights stretched out across the barren plains, 
deep, calling, mysterious. And Brawn shut his eyes to 
the future. 

On March ist he was transferred to the Demobiliza¬ 
tion Detachment; the division no longer had strength 
enough to stand. He followed the truck carrying his 
effects over to the farthermost northeast corner of the 
camp, feeling like a pariah, slightly curious as to what 
might be in store for him now. He found a blackened 
and disorderly area, slack discipline, a dying morale 
and another mountain of paper work. He was put 
in command of a rehabilitation company made up of 
men with venereal disease. It was his duty to see that 
the men were kept in quarantine and sent daily for 
treatment in formation. There was nothing military 
about it. He found the officer personnel at very low 
ebb. For the most part the officers were either ex 
“non-coms” elevated to the rank of officers, or im¬ 
mature youths with no civilian prospects to return to, 
or the frank adventurous type who were ineffectually 
hoping for a chance to join the regular army without 
loss in rank. Brawn was soon disgusted. There was 
a putridity that seemed to hang above the whole en¬ 
closure. The officers frankly loafed as much as they 
dared. There was a little guard duty, a pretence at 


JOHN-NO-B R AWN :i 43 

inspection, a few blatant and garish dances in the old 
Red Cross assembly room* and a great stalling, a uni¬ 
versal putting off of the eventual hour of discharge. 
And spring, with its soft breezes, its countless sugges¬ 
tions of lazy pleasures, was weaving its enchantment 
about him. He felt played out. He shrank from the 
task of starting over, scrambling for himself. He 
now had two to look after and while his pay was 
modest—he had been promoted to First Lieutenant the 
preceding September—still he could get along .on it. 
If he were discharged he would be up to his neck in 
uncertainty. There was nothing else to do but drift 
apparently. 

One afternoon after retreat—it was about the mid¬ 
dle of March—he rode into town. It was an after¬ 
noon of hazy sunlight, with soft mists veiling the bright 
glare, and a close, warm atmosphere hugging the earth, 
fragrant and moist. There was a noticeable scarcity 
of soldiers and to what soldiers remained the populace 
seemed to pay no attention. A few months before, 
San Antonio had been nothing more nor less than an 
armed camp, stern, precise, iron-gripped. Now it 
had relaxed into a post-carnival spirit and was drows¬ 
ing in the sun. Brawn wandered into a hotel, went 
out into the patio and sat down at a table in a far 
corner beneath a huge spreading palm. He dined on 
shrimp cocktail, fried chicken, candied yams and bis¬ 
cuits, and the stringed orchestra hidden behind a bank 
of palms thrummed plaintively away until the winking 
lights came on in the shrubbery. Life was infinitely 
slack and lustreless. He paid his bill, got up, stretched, 
and wandered out on the street. 

He walked along watching the lights on the Gov- 


144 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

ernment Building over across the square beyond the 
Alamo. There was a soft turquoise shimmer in the 
sky. Automobiles went hurrying by with their laugh¬ 
ing freights: girls in flimsy dresses, O. D. uniforms. 
In another month it would be like this in Kentucky. 
He would get an apartment, a little apartment, and he 
and Phil would move into it right off. They would 
have a small apartment so that Phil would not have 
much work to do. It might be a good thing to get his 
discharge at once and go back and see about getting a 
job again. Nothing would ever be accomplished with 
him sticking around in San Antonio. He had decided 
definitely against San Antonio. If he stayed around 
much longer he would do a “Rip Van Winkle.” Phil 
had said nothing on the subject. He supposed she 
was getting along all right. But to have her—in 
Louisville—in spring! In a flash he decided. He 
ran for a jitney that was wheeling away from the curb 
and caught it on the run. He would go back to camp, 
down to the company, and make out his request for 
discharge at once. If he waited he might change his 
mind, like a fatuous lotus eater, and stay on and on. 

The camp seemed like a grotesque, bare ruin when 
he returned to it, but he had no eyes for its inperfec¬ 
tions. He hurried down the dusty street to his bar¬ 
racks and burst into the office. A man in a kitchen 
chair propped against the wall at a precarious angle, 
opened his eyes and blinked as he entered and then 
slowly rose to his feet. There was a single electric 
light hanging above the table which served as Brawn’s 
desk and a motionless blue cloud hung in horizontal 
strata above the desk and stretched out from the light 
in airy tentacles. There was a dim murmur of voices 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 145 

over somewhere behind the partition in the barracks, 
and an overpowering smell of creosote. 

“Want to use the typewriter a minute, Sergeant,’’ 
he said as he sat down. 

The sergeant stirred himself. There was a forced 
alacrity in his voice. “Some mail on the desk for you, 
sir.’’ He came and laid two letters before him. 

Intent on the wording of his discharge request. 
Brawn opened the first letter without noticing the 
envelope. Carelessly he spread the paper on the 
table at his side. And then all of a sudden he pushed 
back his chair, struck the table top with a resounding 
smack of his open hand and smiled. The sergeant 
was watching him respectfully. 

“Good news, Lieutenant?’’ 

Brawn composed himself. “Not so bad,” he re¬ 
plied, with a thoughtful frown upon his face. “Here, 
Sergeant, take a letter, will you? Through military 
channels.” He picked up a pencil and inspected it 
carefully. “I’m getting the offer of a job. Who do 
these discharge requests go to. Sergeant?” 

The days dragged on leaden feet. Each day, at 
noon and at four in the afternoon' Brawn would drop 
in at headquarters. “Any news for me yet. Sergeant 
Major?” he would say. And there would be none. He 
wrote to Phyllida: “Get out as soon as you can. 
Hodges and Smith want me to go to work for them. 
My discharge is coming through any day now. I’ll 
wire you soon’s I know.” 

The company area seemed intolerable. The spirit¬ 
less file of men standing out in line before the barracks, 
waiting for the command to march to the dispensary 


146 JOHN-N 0 -BRAWN 

and then back again—and then wait for another day 
—seemed to Brawn the most hopeless symbol in the 
world. Gradually, one by one, he felt the bonds slip¬ 
ping. The major in command of the Detachment was 
likewise a decaying spirit, dying slowly of rust, a fig¬ 
ure for which one should feel sorry. The reveille 
bugle no longer carried that strident, imperious com¬ 
mand; Brawn slept through it frequently now. He 
signed the morning report, which the sergeant placed 
each morning on his desk, with a feeling of contempt 
for it. No one ever read it. “Non-coms” copied it 
in the consolidation. There were long hours of loaf¬ 
ing about in the sun, of walking about from building to 
building, putting up a vague pretence of being busy. 
And in his mind would come rosy drifts of life as it 
should be. Ambition came and plucked furtively at 
his sleeve. He would be a better man, a more re¬ 
sourceful man, for having served. He would if only 
that discharge ever came through. 

One morning, at about eleven-thirty—it was a steam¬ 
ing hot morning with clouds gathering on the western 
horizon like the vapours above a kettle—the orders 
came. The smug little Mexican orderly slid into the 
office with them and stood back while Brawn signed 
his name in the book. With trembling fingers Brawn 
spread out the papers on the desk. They had come 
at last. He was ordered to appear before the dis¬ 
charge board on the next day for his detailed papers 
and then before the medical board for physical ex¬ 
amination on the morning following. He would be 
released on the third day, would be paid off, get his 
travel slips. 

He spent the afternoon writing letters. He wrote 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 147 

to every one he could think of at home, telling them 
to be on the lookout for him. He wrote to a real 
estate firm telling them he would be In the market for 
an apartment; he accepted the offer of Hodges and 
Smith with a guarded appreciation. 

The morrow finally came. After an endless wait 
In a crowded office, where typewriters banged and 
there was a constant surging In and out, apparently 
to no purpose. Brawn heard his name called and 
then was handed a sheaf of papers all neatly piled to¬ 
gether. The captain at the desk gave him a little 
lecture on the procedure he would have to follow— 
he spoke It as If It might have been Masonic ritual— 
and then Brawn found himself out In the sunlight, 
wondering what to do next. 

There was clearance to be obtained at the Quarter¬ 
master Depot and at the Ordnance Depot. He had 
to get receipts from his Mess Officer. For a time It 
looked as though he could not possibly get It all at¬ 
tended to that day, but throughout all the Irritating 
delays came the uplifting anticipation of freedom and 
homegoing, and he held his patience on Its leash and 
kept doggedly at the business. At retreat he was 
half way across the drill grounds behind Headquarters 
on his way to his room, and he had to stand there in 
salute until the last strains of the bugle died away. 
He stripped off his clothes, took a long, luxurious 
shower, and then dressed for dinner. He heard the 
various comments of his fellow officers on his leaving. 
They seemed vaguely pleasant. He sat, that evening, 
on the rough little steps of the quarters and watched 
the stars come out, watched the sky above the brown 
stretch of plain soften and deepen with the plain fad- 


148 JOHN-NO-B RAWN 

Ing into shadow and reaching into void, mile upon 
mile to the eastward. A sense of complacency came 
over his being. He had finished his job and was ready 
to start for himself. And Phyllida—the idea of her, 
rather—seemed to hover uncertainly about the glam¬ 
orous prospect, she herself the most glamorous thing 
in the whole picture, vague, uncertain, and alluring. 
He trembled slightly at the thought. 

The next morning found him early in line. He 
filed up the stairs to the vast, empty room where the 
Medical Discharge Board was sitting. He was told 
to strip off his clothes, which he did with feverish 
rapidity. Ahead of him stretched a line of naked 
men, with here and there a brown or black skin. At 
various intervals a “medic” would take his respective 
toll. Brawn folded his arms and grasped his sides, 
instinctively nervous, and slowly the line moved along. 
The boards felt rough and splintery to his bare feet. 
He looked around to assure himself where he had left 
his clothes so that he might more easily find them when 
they had finished with him. 

An officer was standing before him with a stetho¬ 
scope. He was a first lieutenant and looked like a 
boy. The officer placed the bell-shaped end of the 
stethoscope against his chest and began moving it 
slowly about. “In, out, and cough,” he said. Then 
he made Brawn stoop over, letting his arms hang 
loosely while he pushed the thing across Brawn’s back. 
Finally he was through. He looked into Brawn’s 
eyes rather queerly. He took a pencil and marked a 
blue cross mark on Brawn’s chest—on the right side, 
just below the clavicle. He started to speak. His 
voice burred and he cleared his throat. “Report to 


149 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

Captain Finley,” he said. “Over there.” He pointed 
across the room. 

Brawn felt a curious, weak, chilly little feeling in 
his stomach. “Don’t I go through with the rest of 
them?” 

“No. Just drop out. Report to Captain Finley.” 
And then the lieutenant turned to the next man. 

Brawn slowly walked across the room to the desk 
indicated. Over in a corner by a window three officers 
were standing, watching something outdoors. Brawn 
paused before the desk and stood there waiting, un¬ 
certain just what to do. His mind was in a blurr. 
Directly one of the officers spied him and came toward 
him. He saw the mark on Brawn’s chest, just as 
Brawn spoke, and he went to the desk and opened the 
drawer. “Are you Captain Finley?” said Brawn in 
a dry voice. The man did not answer him at once 
but drew forth a stethoscope and came round the desk 
toward Brawn, testing the joint of the rubber tube 
with the metal ear piece. “That’s my name,” he re¬ 
plied brightly. 

There came a repetition of what Brawn had been 
through before. “In, out, and cough,” said Captain 
Finley. Directly he paused and with the receiver still 
cupped against Brawn’s chest, called over his shoulder, 
“Oh, Whittemore! Come here, will you?” 

Brawn felt curiously like a trapped animal. A tall 
lieutenant with a brown Van Dyke beard and thick 
red lips came and looked at him* intently in the eyes. 

“Listen to this one,” said Captain Finley. 

“In, out, and cough,” said Lieutenant Whittemore. 
Brawn went through the routine again. It was get¬ 
ting tiresome. 


150 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

Suddenly Whittemore looked up at him and then 
at the captain. And then he smiled. “Yep,” he said. 
“Unmistakable.” 

The three stood there silently for a moment and 
the breeze from the open window came creeping across 
the floor about Brawn’s bare legs. Something was 
holding him rigid and stiff, just as though he were 
at attention, and a dry little tickling arose in his throat 
and his head went round and round. After a while 
he spoke: 

“What’s the matter?” 

The two officers looked at him. Whittemore looked 
at the captain and the captain lowered his eyes. 
Suddenly he looked up at Brawn again and into his 
eyes. “You’ve got t. b.,” he said briskly. “Where 
are your papers?” 

Brawn handed them over to him mechanically and 
the captain sat down at the desk. “Lieutenant?— 
Huh! Tough luck, old man.” He was smiling up 
again at Brawn and holding out the papers. 

“Shall I—shall I get back in line now—and go on 
with the rest of it?” Brawn hardly recognized the 
voice as his own. 

The captain shook his head. “Not now. We’ve 
something else for you to do. Go get on your clothes 
and come back here when you do.” He turned again 
to Whittemore and then the two of them went over 
to the window and were staring out into the area again. 

Brawn walked over to the chair where his clothes 
were piled. Slowly he pulled them on. His hands 
and feet were cold—cold—as though no blood were 
reaching that far. He laced his shoes. He slipped 
his tie through his collar and knotted it. And then 



JOHN-N 0 -BRAWN 151 

he put on his hat, smoothing back his hair as he always 
did when he put on his hat. The line of naked figures 
was filing slowly past him, some nervous, some smil¬ 
ing, some slapping their sides, and in the centre of the 
ring the little lieutenant with his stethoscope, stooping 
over, listening. 

Brawn walked slowly over to Captain Finley’s desk. 
The officers were still watching that something out in 
the area. Brawn stood and waited. He had no feel¬ 
ing unless it might be that of falling—falling inter¬ 
minably through sleazy blue distances. The sunlight 
was bright and warm on the yellow wall of the bar¬ 
racks opposite. He heard the shouts of a teamster 
and he walked slowly over to the window where the 
“medics” were gathered, fingering at his trouser pock¬ 
ets. He could see out of the window. He could see 
a teamster, a raw, new teamster, trying to back his 
mules and a heavy truck up to the warehouse door op¬ 
posite ! He was standing on the footboard of the 
seat and swinging a long whip about his head and try¬ 
ing to reach the mules’ withers with it. He seemed 
periloudy perched and his anxiety was laughable. 
The wagon was stalled against a stone and could not 
move backward. Captain Finley looked up and caught 
sight of Brawn, and came walking toward him. “Just 
a minute. Lieutenant.” 

Brawn watched his face—it was absurdly solemn 
—with the bright glare of the sunlight on the yellow 
wall behind it. And then he laughed. 

“All set. Captain,” he said. “Where do we go 
from here?” 



■« 




.1 


V 


n 





BOOK II 


ARMAGEDDON 



CHAPTER XIV 


A n ambulance went poking its way across 
the plain, pausing every now and then as if 
. to make sure of its footage, then darting for- 
Avard. It weaved along, a vague haphazard path— 
progressing gingerly. As far as the eye could reach 
was a flat tableland all graying brown and with hardly 
a bit of colour save the splotch of dirty mauve that 
was a rancher’s cottage plumped squarely in the midst 
of a gray nothing. Not a tree, not a blade of grass 
had the hardihood to live in this plain and from the 
northwestward clouds were scudding, occasionally dip¬ 
ping low with their caps full of wind that carried a few 
furtive splashes of rain and drove the tumble weed 
before them in crazy’ wheeling balls. The air was 
chill and the sky, even when it dipped with its dirty 
curling mists, had a cold aloofness and would draw 
away again as if scorning the earth and its feeble human 
litter. Blimp ump ump iimp, went the ambulance, hump 
limp ump bump bump. “My God, driver,” called a 
voice. “Have a heart, won’t you? You’ll jerk the 
works out of us.” The voice came from a man in a 
long officer’s overcoat buttoned close up under his 
chin. He had his hands shoved deep in his pockets 
and sat hunched forward slightly, staring at the blank 
drab curtain that was the side of his conveyance. “I 
hadn’t much the matter with me when I got in this 


156 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

damn bus, but there’s no telling what this guy has 
jarred loose now.” This last he added to a compan¬ 
ion who sat across the narrow aisleway, facing him in 
a corresponding attitude and a bit nearer the door. 
“Wonder why they haven’t filled up these shell holes?” 

The driver caught a look over his shoulder, started 
to speak, then leaned over to the left and discharged 
a tremendous amber deluge out upon the landscape. 

“Dey ain’t built no road. Why should dey? We 
ain’t goin’ nowhere—on’y to a hospittle.” 

Bump ump ump hump, went the ambulance. 

The first officer glanced over at his companion. 
Sympathetically each smiled. This cryptic friendli¬ 
ness of the driver’s implied many things: an assumption 
that sickness automatically was a general leveller to a 
common rank of suffering; an inference that all who 
wore the uniform were leagued against a callous public 
and a venal administration somewhere. “Where are 
you from. Lieutenant?” and then as the other man 
seemed taken by surprise, “I’m Captain Mellon— 
Coast Artillery—Presidio.” 

They reached out across the aisle and shook hands. 
“I’m from Camp Travis—Eighty-fifth Infantry—My 
name’s Brawn.” 

This sufficed for some minutes. 

After a time: “Much the matter with you?” from 
the captain. He coughed slightly, a short, hard, dry 
cough. 

“Not that I know of,” replied Brawn. “Don’t 
know that there’s anything—for sure.” 

“Same here.” 

Silence for a long while. 

The captain coughed again. “Bronchitis,” he es- 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 157 

sayed, and then was silent again—thoughtful and re¬ 
flecting. “Sure’d like to get home—back to my busi¬ 
ness. It’s on the boom now. Contractin’, pavin’. 
Damn fools! Losin’ about fifty dollars a day.” 

Brawn speculated on the problem of the captain. 

“Yeah,” he said. “It is tough. I know what it 
is.” Suddenly he raised his head and addressed the 
opposite curtain. “But I suppose they have to be 
careful. They’ve got to be sure and turn us back to 
the community in the same shape they took us.” The 
idea was forming in his head as he went along and he 
W'as a bit astonished at his facility. “They’ve rented 
us—our bodies—our lives—from ourselves. Now 
they’re through with us and they have to pay for 
whatever damage results. Not like a truck or some¬ 
thing like that. They can junk stuff like that when 
they’re through. But with a man it’s different.” 

The captain looked up from his collar and stared 
at Brawn. Slowly his lower jaw dropped and his eye¬ 
lids grew heavy. “Yeah,” he said. “Thirty dollars 
a month!—Helluva damage!” 

“How do you mean?” asked Brawn. 

“That’s what they’ll pay you—if you’re totally dis¬ 
abled.” 

Silence descended again upon the interior of the 
ambulance, a silence that was in some strange manner 
infected with bitterness. They had dropped back 
into intermediate speed and the grinding noise of the 
gear was harsh and irritating. They crept along. And 
behind them, pursuing them across the plain, came the 
gusty wind with its empty rattle, the darting clouds and 
fretful rain splashes, the swirling spirals of thin anemic 
dust and the crazy tumbleweed—rolling, rolling. 



15 8 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

And then In some inexplicable manner the whole 
thing stopped: the groaning of the gears, the whistling 
of the wind and the biimp-iimp-iimp of the body on the 
springs. They were still; the driver was sliding across 
the seat. He crawled through the narrow aperture 
of the curtain. “You’se wait here,” he said. “Be 
back In a minute.” 

Through the dirty splash of the windshield they 
saw him cross In front of the car and go Into a little 
shop at the corner of the crossroads up ahead. And 
beyond—Brawn felt a curious sinking, letting go as he 
looked—squarely athwart their path stood two tall 
columns of concrete, posts of a ponderous Iron grille 
that stood yawning and open, and above It, swinging 
slowly back and forth in the wind, a painted sign that 
said: “West Gate.” A sentry stood by one of the 
pillars, his rifle couched In the saddle of his shoulder. 
He was watching the car from under the brim of his 
hat—waiting. They had arrived. 

And then the driver was coming toward them, his 
head bent forward slightly against the wind, his right 
cheek bulging, a frown of preoccupation on his face. 
He clambered In. There was a clank, again the 
grinding noise, and the car lurched forward only to 
come to a stop a few feet farther on. Some one came 
and lifted the corner of the back curtain and peered 
in. He looked at the captain and he looked at Brawn. 
And then he looked at the empty seats—thoughtfully. 
It was the sentry. His eyes squinted a bit to adjust to 
the gloom of the Interior and Brawn and the captain 
sat with the rigid Impassiveness of the soldier on In¬ 
spection, simulating Inorganic matter—just as though 
there were nothing ridiculous In the procedure. 



JOHN-NO-BRAWN 159 

“A-ite,” grunted the sentry, jerking his free thumb 
over his shoulder. The curtain dropped and the car 
lurched forward. And in Brawn’s heart kept ringing, 
like a tiny, insistent bell: “It’s come. It’s come.” 

They whirled along a gravelly roadway, lined by 
a double column of pitiful, naked little trees. The 
road was a red-brown gash in an interminable stretch 
of gray. Here and there were tufts of gray-brown 
weeds and some mounds of yellow dirt freshly spaded 
up and laid back apparently to no purpose. Across 
the plains, miles to the north, streaked the wind and 
the clouds with the tumbleweed fleeing before it— 
above, sky; below, plain; beside these, nothing. And 
then suddenly, up ahead, as they turned a slight curve, 
they saw a line of tall square buildings, likewise naked 
and bare and gray, only a little darker than the back¬ 
ground of sky. They were drawn up in rows echel¬ 
oned, and they had that sullen, sombre, impassive 
look of waiting for something. To Brawn they could 
be waiting but for one purpose, had been thus waiting 
throughout a bleak eternity. And directly these were 
slipping past, silent save for the echoing scud of the 
wind, with huge gray windows placed at intervals like 
dots on a baby’s blocks, and with the earth about them 
all bare and yellow and dead and spewing little whirl¬ 
winds of dust and trash. 

Then the echelons gave way to a disordered cluster, 
a semi-circle of buildings, one of them painted white 
and with a warm red roof. The gravel road turned 
into a paving of concrete that circled the central build¬ 
ing and grass plot, wherein lifted a tall, slender flag 
pole. The ambulance swept round this circle about 
one quarter of the circumference and then came to a 


i6o JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

stop, its brakes grinding. “Yu-up! Here ye are,” 
said the driver and sprang from his seat to the 
ground. 

Brawn and the captain painfully clambered out back¬ 
ward. They stood on the roadway waiting for further 
directions and as they did so the sun peeped through 
an unexpected rift in the sky and lighted up a white 
plaster structure before them in a pale and sickly 
glare. All about them was a curious bustle. Trucks 
were plunging about over to the left, churning up the 
soft yellow dirt into deep ruts. Gangs of men carry¬ 
ing spades and shovels were filing through an opening 
in a lattice fence between two adjacent buildings. Be¬ 
fore them was a narrow portico protecting double 
doors that were constantly swinging open and shut 
and through these doors was revealed a long hallway 
down which a line of men in pale bathrobes was slowly 
moving to some unseen destination. Brisk chubby little 
officers with the insignia of the medical corps on their 
collars went to and fro, their eyes bent thoughtfully on 
the ground. There seemed a plethora of majors; 
Brawn counted five as he stood there waiting. Beyond 
the building directly before them stretched another, 
dirty gray in colour and apparently miles long, and 
from the doors along its length there was a constant 
traffic of orderlies in white coats, wheeling little dump 
carts and provision wagons. Their own driver was 
busy talking to a soldier In a white coat who leaned 
from a window a few yards away, and they both seemed 
amused at something. “These corps men’re mostly 
all Conscientious Objectors,” said Captain Mellon. 
“No discipline at all.” 

They stood there Idly and watched the life of the 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN i6i 

post surge past them. Through the door they could 
see that pale line pressing slowly on. There seemed 
no end to the line. There came the warning whir of 
an automobile and they stepped a little to one side as 
a large lavender-coloured shape lumbered past. It 
stopped, then backed up in a curve to a small basement 
doorway in the main building over to their right. The 
driver jumped down. The door opened and three 
orderlies came out and stood waiting for a minute, 
blinking, hatless in the pale sunshine. Then a long 
yellow box poked its nose out the door and the three 
orderlies sprang forward and took hold. Staggering 
under the weight and assisted by the driver they car¬ 
ried the box forward and laid it on the pavement just 
outside the building. Another box was poking its 
nose out and this they treated in the same manner, 
laying it on the pavement beside the other. Came a 
third. In grasping the corner of this third box, one 
of the orderlies stumbled and the box nearly fell to 
the pavement, but the orderly recovered it. They 
laid it beside the other two and the men then straight¬ 
ened up and looked about them, wiping their fore¬ 
heads. The driver produced a book from his coat and 
opened it. He handed it with a pencil to one of the 
orderlies who wrote something in it and then handed 
it back, punching the driver in the ribs with the 
pencil. 

Captain Mellon turned to Brawn. There was a 
wide grin on his face. “Some plant,” he said. “Ship¬ 
ping room, must be. Feed ’em in there”—pointing to 
the long line of bathrobed men—“Load ’em out there. 
Wonder what the output is?” 

Brawn felt a little sick at his stomach. “Come on. 


i 62 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

you two,” called the ambulance driver. He led the 
way up the steps, down the hallway past the line of men 
to a small room tucked in a corner under a stairs. 
There was a sergeant bent over a table in the centre 
of the room and he was busy writing. The driver laid 
a bulging envelope on the table. “Two more. Ser¬ 
geant. Here’s the charts.” Then he left them. The 
sergeant looked up, caught sight of the braid on their 
sleeves and hitched up a little straighter in his chair. 
“Just sit down there a minute, Captain—Lieutenant,” 
he said politely. 

They did so and as they waited there came to their 
ears a murmurous sound, a sound of many feet shuf¬ 
fling along, a sound of doors distantly slamming, the 
hum of voices and the harsh, chattering bark of a truck 
passing an open window. Directly the sergeant pushed 
a button and a bell rang in the distance. An orderly 
appeared at the door to the hall. “Take these er— 
a-” 

They followed the orderly down the hall and out 
again into the paved square. The hearse was just 
leaving as they passed. Behind them they could hear 
that shuffling of feet, that confused hum of voices in 
restraint. Across the ground they went to a long ce¬ 
ment incline with iron railings that ran upward in a 
gentle slope to a platform about fifteen or twenty feet 
high on the face of the very long building. From this 
platform the incline split and branched out in two arms 
running upward and parallel with the building to a 
covered porch on either side. All along the building 
in either direction were these porches at regular inter¬ 
vals, and above the concrete railings around them 
Brawn caught sight of an occasional head. Leading 



JOHN-N 0 -BRAWN 163 

from the central platform into the building was a 
double door to which the orderly conducted them, and 
as It swung open a gust of warm air surged down the 
passage toward them, heavy with the odour of forma¬ 
lin and carbolic acid, subtly blended. They climbed 
a short flight of stairs and came to a small office with 
glass partitions and an open glass door. 

“Wait here,” the orderly said to the captain. “You 
come this way,” to Brawn. And the latter followed 
him down a dim hallway flanked by interminable doors, 
half glass and heavily curtained and with cards display¬ 
ing the name of the occupant pasted to the wall by each 
door with adhesive tape. Brawn had an indistinct Im¬ 
pression that he was passing rooms—rooms wherein 
other human beings were housed. Far down the pass¬ 
age he could see figures moving along, crossing the hall 
from one side to the other and disappearing. And 
there was that same vague hush, that suggestion of 
feet shuffling along. Never had there been stranger 
hostelry; never stranger hospitality. Years and years 
before when he was a very little boy he had had a toy 
called a roller coaster down which one rolled marbles. 
The marbles would roll down a runway around corners 
and through little tunnels until they spilled out Into a 
round basin with slots or sockets placed about at ran¬ 
dom and with numbers opposite the slots. There they 
w’ould whirl about for a moment and then settle slowly 
Into a slot. It was all quite Incidental and delightfully 
impersonal. He was a marble. He had been pushed 
down the runway. He was rolling about on the basin. 
And now he was stopping before his slot. The orderly 
was opening the door. Funny what fool things the 
human mind will occupy Itself with 



164 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

“Here y’are,” said the orderly. “Yer baggage’ll 
come up in about an hour.” 

Brawn looked at his watch. It was four o’clock. 
Then he looked about the room. It was quite empty, 
not a thing within its four yellow plaster walls. Fac¬ 
ing him was a window and a pair of double glass doors 
that led to a porch. Through the doors he could see a 
bed, made up and unoccupied, and a chair and a small 
bedside table. He walked slowly to the door and 
peered out. There was his porch. Over to the right of 
it was another bed. He could see that there was some 
one in it. Two men shared one porch, it was apparent. 
Above the porch railing was the gray line of roof of a 
building near by, and above that gray line of roof a 
blank patch of gray sky. Brawn felt as though he had 
been dropped down out of the sky into nowhere, a dull, 
empty gray void. 

The door opened and a plump, red-faced nurse came 
briskly in. 

“Here are your pajamas and a bathrobe and some 
slippers.—And haven’t you any chair?—Well, I’ll 
have one sent in.” She reached out the clothing and 
Brawn took it dumbly. “Just shuck off your clothes 
and jump into these pajamas.—Are the slippers too 
big, d’you think?” 

“But why should I do that?” protested Brawn. 
“I’m not sick.” 

The nurse raised her eyebrows and gave a slight 
shrug of her shoulders. “You don’t know,” she said. 
“We’ll see about that later.—Now be a good boy and 
do as I tell you.” 

She did not seem to look at him directly. She did not 
seem to regard him any more than the four bare walls. 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 165 

He thought perhaps she meant to stay—to see that he 
did her bidding. With his free right hand he slowly 
began to unbutton his blouse. And then she turned 
and left the room. 

In another minute an orderly came in with a chair 
and Brawn proceeded with his undressing. When he 
had got into his pajamas and slippers, he turned, with 
his hand on the door knob, and looked back. The chair 
with the pile of his clothes on it looked quite forlorn, 
there in the centre of the empty room. He opened the 
door and stepped out upon the porch, still feeling that 
he was venturing. But the wind came sweeping about 
his bare ankles and around his shoulders and he made 
haste to kick off his slippers and jump into the bed. 
Was there ever a madder thing to do? For a moment 
he lay quite breathless, staring at the ceiling, his mind 
reeling round and round in a giddy whirl. What had 
he got himself into? 

“You’re sure getting off to a flying start,” said a 
voice and then he remembered that he had a neighbour 
and turned his head. A boy with a bright red face was 
lying in the bed across the porch from him and grin¬ 
ning pleasantly. “Most of ’em take it by degrees,” 
said the boy. “You must want to get it over and done 
with.” 

Brawn smiled wanly. “I reckon I do.” 

He was not so very neighbourly so his companion 
said no more. And Brawn lay—flat on his back, gaz¬ 
ing off into the gray patch of sky above the roof, and 
by and by a dull, senseless calm began to settle down 
upon him. He no longer cared. 

After a long, long time he heard the door open be¬ 
hind him and he turned his head and looked around. 


i66 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

Approaching him was a radiant young person in a sky- 
blue dress and white apron and with a detached and 
foolish-looking little cap on her head. She had a 
bundle of books under her arm and a tablet and pencil 
in her hand. She came and stood beside Brawn’s bed; 
for a moment he thought she was a child, she was so 
pink and chubby and trustful-looking with her staring 
brown eyes and her tight little mouth. 

“And what can I put you down for?” she said, wig¬ 
gling her pencil at him and cocking one eyebrow. 

Brawn looked puzzled. 

“Oh,” she said, flushing. “You’re another one, 
aren’t you?” 

“Yes,” said Brawn. “I suppose I am.” 

“Well. That makes no difference anyway. What 
are you going to take?” 

“I don’t know if you’re kidding me or not, but if it’s 
just the same to you I’ll take mine straight and get it 
over with.” He shifted a little in his bed and partly 
turned on his side the better to see her. 

She frowned. “Oh, dear! You’re a new one, aren’t 
you? I suppose I’ll have to tell you all about it.” 

“Yes,” said Brawn, “I suppose you will.” 

But she paid no attention to his interruption. “Well, 
you see. I’m teaching all these boys”—an expansive 
gesture including all the sleeping porches—“every¬ 
thing.” She paused and looked at him with mock 
fierceness. 

“What a talented young person you must be,” said 
Brawn. 

“So that when you get out, you can go into most 
any sort of work—only I just have the academic 
work; the others teach you the rest.” 



JOHN-NO-BRAWN 167 

Brawn was silent—“When you get out”—^when? 

She was watching his face. Suddenly she seemed sat¬ 
isfied. “r ve spelling and arithmetic and algebra—a 
little. And I’ve a wee tiny course in Masterpieces— 
painting and sculpture, you know—tell you how to ap¬ 
preciate them. And’’—she paused— “next week I’ll 
have a new one. —Just as soon as we get the 
books.’’ Her voice was high and throaty like a 
child’s and she had a nervous little way of switching 
her skirt. 

“Won’t you sit down?’’ said Brawn. 

“No, thank you. It’s a course in political economy. 
I don’t know whose text. But it ought to prove very 
useful.—- You’re a business man, aren’t you—or have 
been ?’’ 

“Yes,” said Brawn, watching her eyes that went 
roaming about the ceiling and the porch and the sky 
and the porches beyond, as restless as humming birds. 
“You may put me down for that.” 

“All right,” she agreed cheerfully. “That’ll be fine. 
I’m so glad and I’ll let you know soon’s the books 
come. What is the name, please?” 

He told her and watched her write it down on her 
tablet. 

“Well, good-bye.—Oh, hello. Lieutenant Cole!” 
She stepped across the porch to the other bed. 

Brawn lay and looked at the ceiling. He barely 
heard her as she left the porch some minutes later. 

He must have slept, a short breathless little nap, 
for he suddenly realized that an orderly was standing 
by his bedside with a tray on which was food. He 
straightened in his bed, allowed the orderly to put the 
tray across his knees. On the plate there was a small 


i68 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

oval of meat. He dug into it with his fork and 
nibbled a bite. It was discouraging—a slab of goose 
liver or something much like it. There was a pat of 
mashed potatoes, moist and cool. On another little 
plate were two thin slices of dry bread cut triangular 
shape and a small piece of butter—also a pickle, very 
sour and shrivelled. In a small porcelain cup without 
a handle was some milk. The cup was chipped about 
the edge so that it grated on his lip. And just inside the 
brim was a thin ring of scummy dirt. The milk tasted 
flat. Brawn sighed and then he pushed the stuff from 
him. After a while the orderly came and took away 
the tray. “Want any more milk?” he asked. He did 
not notice-that the cup was still half full. 

Slowly the minutes passed and after a while the 
gray patch above the roof line began to grow darker. 
Somewhere below him some one began to cough—a 
long, tremulous, unsatisfying cough. Brawn shivered 
and bit his lip. The plant was operating. The raw 
material was feeding through. He tried not to listen. 
But despite himself he strained his ears—to hear bet¬ 
ter. And then all along that unknown, unseen area 
there came a murmurous sound, as of countless throats 
clearing themselves, and a rustling, a suggestive move¬ 
ment. Suddenly he realized that he had been hearing it 
all along, only now as night fell, bringing the night air, 
cold and penetrating and sharp, there seemed to rise 
a more insistent note—more insistent notes—until 
finally there came beating against his ears a babel of 
racking sound, staccato, punctuated by breathless 
silences, and every now and then a low groan. 

Gradually the sun slipped away from the world, 
leaving it only a little grayer, and across the sky there 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 169 

passed a line of tenuous cloud shapes, with misty, 
writhing outlines. Silently they chased themselves 
across the patch before him, silently fleeing. And 
Brawn threw his arm up over his head and turned on 
his side, closing his eyes. 


CHAPTER XV 


Y OU don’t want to let those stiffs get your agate. 
—What they don’t know would fill a book.” 
It was Lieutenant Cole speaking, lying with 
his cheek propped in his palm, the covers drawn up 
carelessly about his shoulders. 

Brawn laughed nervously. “Oh, I don’t. After 
all it’s just what one man thinks. Or rather guesses. 
It’s only guess work. I had an uncle years ago that the 

doctors told would live only six weeks-” 

“Sure,” said Cole. “And don’t give up all the joy 
in life. Take it from me, I don’t. They don’t watch 
this place much after night and—there’s a good 
way out.” He waved his hand at the concrete runway 
which joined on to his side of the porch. A faint smile 
hovered about his lips. “Been to town any?” 

“No,” said Brawn. “Not yet.” 

“Live town. Lots of janes help separate you from 
your money. I had one—let’s see—week ago last 
Saturday night. Went to a joint out north there some 
where—back in a grove of trees. Had a lot of cur¬ 
tained booths and a slick dance floor with the jazziest 
orchestra you ever heard. Only trouble was this jane 
didn’t want to come home. I pretty near blew a fuse.” 
“Didn’t dance, did you?” 

“Manicure.—Huh? Oh yes. Little bit. ’S good 
for you. Help you digest this damn grub.” 




JOHN-NO-BRAWN 171 

They were silent. Down the hall past their door 
sounded the muffled thud of rubber heels. Somewhere 
off in the distance some one was washing pans; the 
slamming and crashing of them was detached, local¬ 
ized in the silence. Along the pavement below, a man’s 
voice was singing, “I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles.” 
They could hear the sharp crack of his heels on the 
walk. 

Cole laughed. “Been classified yet?” 

“No.” And then after a minute or so: “How do 
you mean classified?” 

“Oh, ’cording to your chances.—Good, fair, poor.” 
He wrinkled up his forehead and scratched his head. 
“Don’t know where I come in. Don’t think the doc 
knows himself. He ought to use a punch-board—put 
our names on a punch board. Whatever he punches 
out that’s what we get.” 

“How do you mean, ‘Good, fair and poor’?” said 
Brawn. 

“That’s your chance—to get well. Good, fair, poor! 
—Well, I should worry.” The flush on his face was 
mounting into his hair and his eyes were very bright. 
He was fingering the edge of the white counterpane. 
“They’re rating them now. Started up west end of 
Upper West. For insurance, you know.” 

Brawn was watching a huge bluebottle fly that was 
crawling along the porch railing toward an empty milk 
cup. The fly crawled up the steep side of the cup and 
over the beaded rim. There it paused as if to peer 
down into the crater and then disappeared over the 
edge. Brawn wondered if eventually they meant to 
screen the place. 

Cole chuckled. “There’s one guy pulled a good one 


172 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

on the Board, they tell me—yesterday. They were 
arguin’ like hell in the next room whether to give him 
total permanent or not.—That’s to give him his insur¬ 
ance, you know,” he added. “Seems as though you 
have to have all five lobes or cavities or something. 
Well,” he went on, “as they were arguin’ whether or 
not this guy—he was a Lieutenant Groome, I believe— 
whether this Lieutenant was totally and permanently 
disabled, damn if he didn’t die on ’em—while they were 
out of the room in the next room talking about his 
case! One of the doctors came walking back into his 
room: ‘Well, Lieutenant,’ he says, ‘we’ve decided to 
give it to you.’ The guy was dead. Flipped a ruby 
they say. Had guts enough not to holler out. Either 
that, or he was too far gone.”—Cole chuckled again. 
“First time the board ever guessed right they say.” 

Brawn pulled the covers up close under his chin 
and watched the little patch of fleecy white clouds go 
drifting past across his blue space. The blue space was 
very blue. The scullery man had finished washing his 
pans; the feet in the hallway had gone beyond hearing. 

“Know what your rating is yet?” Cole was asking 
him. 

“No,” said Brawn. “Haven’t been examined yet.” 

“Don’t let ’em put anything over on you. Sicker 
you are the more they’ll give you. Tell ’em you’re sick 
as hell.—Might as well collect that fifty-seven fifty a 
month as let ’em pay it to some dizzy clerk in the War 
Risk Bureau.” 

“I don’t think there’s much the matter with me,” 
said Brawn. 

“Mightn’t be now. Just wait till you’ve been here 
a while,” said Cole. 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 173 

The morning passed slowly. At eleven o’clock, Cap¬ 
tain Parker, the ward surgeon, came out on their 
porch, a black cloth-covered blank-book in his hand. 
“Let’s see,” he said. “There’s—I haven’t examined 
you yet, have I?” to Brawn. “This is—room thirty- 
three, isn’t it?—Twenty-nine, thirty-one—thirty-three. 
—Brown?—No, Brawn, isn’t it? Brawn—J. O.” 

“Yes,” said Brawn* feeling a tenseness about his 
stomach. 

“Well. Just slip on your bathrobe and come with 
me. Lieutenant.—You’re feeling well enough to, aren’t 
you?” 

“Surely,” replied Brawn quickly. “There’s nothing 
the matter with me. Captain. Never felt better in my 
life.” 

The captain was unimpressed. “Well, just slip on 
your bathrobe. It’s a bit chilly in the hall. We’ll go 
down to the office. It’s quieter there.” 

Down the hall they went. Brawn like a gray, ghostly, 
gliding shadow after the fat, dumpy figure in uniform. 
They turned in the little glass-partitioned office, and 
the captain closed the door and pulled down the blinds. 
“Take off your shirt.” 

There followed a repetition of the procedure to 
which Brawn had become so accustomed, the captain 
every now and then pausing to whistle a few bars of 
an unintelligible tune, under his breath. He paused. 
Then he began to cluck softly with his tongue against 
his palate. He sprang to his feet and walked over to 
the glass cabinet in the corner. He rummaged about 
on the bottom shelf and pulled out a pad of charts— 
long narrow forms. He sat down at the desk and laid 
the pad before him and then looked up at the wall. 


174 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

“How’m I getting on, Captain?” said Brawn. 
“Pretty good?” 

“Mmmm,” replied the captain, musingly. He 
stooped over and began to make some little marks on 
the chart. “Cough much?” 

“None at all.—I tell you. Captain, I never felt 
better in my life. Think I’ve been getting stronger 
just lying there in that fine air.”—The captain referred 
to his blank book.—“Reckon I can be getting out now 
in a few days? I’ve some business I’d like to be at¬ 
tending to in town. I’ve been in eight days now.” 

To all intents the captain had not heard him. Then 
he smiled and stood up again. His face was full and 
round and cheerful, not much expression in the deep- 
set eyes. “Better stick a bit close for a while yet. 
You’re still running a little temp.” 

“But,” exclaimed Brawn, aghast, “I’ve never-” 

He paused. “Why, I feel like a million dollars,” he 
finished in a low, protesting tone. 

“I see you’re from Louisville.” 

“Yes,” said Brawn, dully. 

“I lived in Louisville,” the captain went on brightly. 
“Went to the medical college there. Remember it? 
First and Chestnut?” 

Brawn was not interested in the medical college 
at First and Chestnut. He was running a temp. 
“Yes,” he said. “I went to the High School.—Build¬ 
ing just next door.” 

The captain sucked at an offending tooth. “We 
might have been there at the same time.—It’s funny, 
isn’t it?” 

Brawn made no reply. His mind was far away from 
the things of the past. Time was sweeping forward 



JOHN-NO-BRAWN 175 

with relentless haste. Then he realized that he was 
not being sociable. “You didn’t practise in Louisville, 
did you, Captain?” 

“No. I went to Indianapolis.” 

So he was running a temp. “I knew a Doctor Wells 
in Indianapolis. In fact I trained there—for the army. 
He lived somewhere on State Street—big frame house 
—on a corner. Went there to dinner one Sunday dur¬ 
ing Camp.—You didn’t happen to know him, did you?” 

“No.” 

“And then there was a Doctor Peabody,” went on 
Brawn—it would be better to be friendly; he might be 
able to work him for a pass later on. “Did'you happen 
to know him?” 

“No,” said the Captain slowly. “I a-as a matter 

of fact, I did not follow medicine when I went to In¬ 
dianapolis. I was with the Northern Mutual Life 
Insurance Company there for six years.” 

“Oh, I see,” said Brawn. “Medical Board?” 

. “No,” He paused for a long time. Then he closed 
the book and shoved it in a drawer of the desk. “I 
was on the street.” 

Brawn was slipping into his bathrobe. Somehow he 
felt that he had not been fortunate in his efforts to be 
chummy. 

“Well,” said Captain Parker, “you’d better run 
along now and get back to bed.—Stick pretty close. 
Lieutenant. You’ve got quite a lot of trouble, there, 
on the right side.” 

Brawn walked slowly down the hall and into his 
room. 

He struggled through the noon meal in a kind of 
daze. There were strawberries. Brawn had six of 



176 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

them for his ration—ancient, rubbery, flavourless 
things they were, not quite ripe, in spots rather green. 
There were carrots and corn bread, dry and crumbly 
and yellow and coarse, and a small slab of overdone 
roast beef fringed about with festoons of fat and 
gristle, and the eternal porcelain cup of chalky milk. 
So he was not going to get out of it so soon after all! 
Perhaps he would be spending years on that porch, 
in that very bed. There was no telling about anything. 
—And the captain had sold insurance on the streets 
of Indianapolis.—How hard was it, he wondered, to 
diagnose a chest? The orderly came and took the 
tray away and Brawn sank back in his pillows again. 
He closed his eyes and deliberately tried to sleep. He 
imagined he was in Kentucky—in May. It was the 
river front that came to his mental eye. It was gusty 
and dry and the sunlight lay in uncertain, pale yellow 
patches on the cobbles. Below him, a distance away, 
lapped the edges of the river, yellow and muddy and 
littered with trash and scum just where the water 
touched the land. They were unloading a river steam¬ 
er. Strings of Negro roustabouts were filing up and 
down the gang-plank that somehow did not quite reach 
the bank. The Negroes would come up out of the hold 
with tremendous burdens on their heads and shoulders; 
one staggered under a grand piano, another carried a 
hogshead of tobacco, another held securely over his 
head the kicking and struggling body of a steer. Down 
the gang-plank they would come in Indian file, reach 
the end, and throw their burdens off their shoulders 
into the water where they sank like stones and disap¬ 
peared. Then the Negroes would turn about and file 
back up the gang-plank into the boat again. They 


JOHN-NO-B R A WN 177 

were all very quiet, very sober about it. Then a 
whistle blew—there was no sound of a whistle, only 
the picture of one blowing: white steam rising in a 
cloud and the certainty of sound without its perception 
—the gang-plank rose and stood pointing off into the 
sky. The boat began to move. There was an immedi¬ 
ate scurrying of forms on the lower deck and Brawn 
could see the boat beginning to settle; the yellow water 
was rising slowly so that it came to the edge of the deck 
like water brimming in a glass. And then the boat 
listed to one side and the captain of the boat came 
and told Brawn not to be afraid, that he had sold in¬ 
surance on the street for six years and could very 
easily save the boat and Brawn too. Brawn did not 
hear him but that was what he said. And then the 
water came over. “Are you going to sleep your life 
away?” said a voice, and he looked up and saw Miss 
Dorothy Peck standing by his bed with a bright yellow 
book in her hand. 

“It’s come,” said Miss Dorothy Peck. 

Brawn blinked. At first he could not think what it 
was she meant. 

She pulled up a chair and sat down by the bed. 
The little tendrils of soft golden hair curled about the 
facing of her cap, and her cheek, as she gazed down at 
the book in her lap, was a rich, creamy golden texture, 
while underneath, the pulsing suggestion of bright red 
blood surged out in a ruddy flush at her temples and in 
the delicate convolutions of her ears. “Do you know 
anything about economy. Lieutenant Brawn?” 

He was watching the crimson ebb and flow. “I’ve 
never practised it.—Don’t know that I do.” 

She blushed, bit her lip and frowned. “Let’s try 


178 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

not be frivolous,” she said. “Economy, rather Politi¬ 
cal Economy In particular. Is the husbanding of any 
kind of er a—resources, material or mental”—she 
paused, looked thoughtful, opened the book, shut It 
again leaving her thumb In the place where she had 
opened It—“warlike or peaceful.” Then she reflect¬ 
ed on the scope of the definition as she gazed off at the 
opposite roof. “By resources I suppose he means not 
only material things but labour and electricity—that 
Isn’t material—and water power and—and credit. 
Credit Is the great thing In business. Let’s get the full 
idea of what he means by resources,” she urged. 

“I know,” murmured Brawn. “Resources means 
capacity, too. You’ve got to have ’em to live here.” 
He waved his hand to include the confines of the sleep¬ 
ing porch. 

“Let’s stick to the discussion of the text.—^What 
businesses have you been In, Lieutenant Brawn?” 

Brawn considered. “Well, I sold pigs once, but I 
didn’t make much money at it. The pigs I raised my¬ 
self.—And then later on I took subscriptions to maga¬ 
zines and I sold stamps, for collections. And then 
the last business I was in I sold building lots. In a sub¬ 
division. But the sub-division did not pan out very 
well. They built a glue factory on one edge of It.” 

Miss Dorothy Peck was puzzled. She did not seem 
to know just how to proceed: Brawn was so very grave. 
“Well,” she exclaimed, then paused, and then opened 
the book again and began to read In It. The breeze 
came and twitched Idly at her skirts and twisted the 
little tendrils of her hair. Directly she looked up. 
She pursed her lips. “What—what do you suppose 
—^wealth Is?” 


JOHN-N 0 -BRAWN 179 

Brawn smiled a shadowy smile. “I’ve—not—the 
slightest—idea.” 

She sprang to her feet, her face crimson. “Listen, 
Lieutenant Brawn. We Re-Aides are here to help 
you. This is serious business and we’re not just to 
entertain you men. You needn’t think I’m going 
around just to have some conversation with a lot of 
unappreciative boys.” She emphasized the word 
“boys.” “You must try and be serious. Otherwise 
there’d be no use in my staying away from home and 
my work just for something trivial.” She looked at 
him unsteadily and her eyes were dewy. “I’m not so 
certain of this subject myself. I have to work hard to 
prepare for these lessons and you ought not to-” 

“I’m sorry,” said Brawn. 

She relented a little and returned to the book. This 
time she read aloud from it frankly: “External re¬ 
sources are desired as a means of living* or as a means 
of well-being; in either case as a means of fulfilling 
human ends, and satisfying human wants.—Collective¬ 
ly, they are his wealth-” She paused and thought. 

“Do you get the idea of that?” 

Br awn murmured acquiescence. 

She was silent for a long time; he thought she had 
mentally drifted from the ponderous tome. “What do 
you do—at home?” he ventured at length. 

She seemed a bit surprised but not offended. “Why,” 
she said. “I help my father.” 

“And what does your father do?” Brawn per¬ 
sisted. 

“He runs a general store,” said Dorothy Peck, 
“back home.” 

“Where is back home?” 





i8o JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

She flushed. She flushed easily like sunshine on a 
shell. She was always flushing. “lola, Nebraska.— 
It’s a little place.” 

“That sounds pretty good to me,” said Brawn. 

Economy and wealth were forgotten in the face of 
more important things. The air that came lapping 
about the corner of the porch grew balmier and 
balmier and the sun sank in the west so that there was 
a crimson glare on the concrete pillar at the porch cor¬ 
ner. Brawn was telling Dorothy Peck how “the bunch” 
used to motor to Lexington every Saturday afternoon 
the spring of 1909. She sat listening, smiling. Sud¬ 
denly she sprang up. She looked at her watch. “Oh I” 
she said. “This is terrible. I’ll have to run, run, 
run.—Well,” she motioned at him with her pencil, 
“to-morrow we’ll go on. I’ll leave the book here. 
And you owe me a dollar and thirty-five cents.” 

“To-morrow I’ll pay you,” said Brawn. 

“Good-bye.” 

“Good-bye.” 

He watched the swing of her starched blue skirt as 
she left the porch. He heard her open the door to 
the hall, heard a slight bustling confusion' and then 
voices. There came a hum and a rustling and then 
four men in pajamas and bathrobes burst out on to 
the porch. The leader, a slender man with a mop 
of graying hair and gold-rimmed spectacles and a 
very red thin face came forward, holding out his 
hand. 

“My name is Bledsoe, Lieutenant,” he said, “Major 
Bledsoe. And this is Lieutenant Scholtz, Lieutenant 
Benning, and Captain Menowski.” Three men with 
trailing bathrobes and with bare throats and long 


JOHN-NO-B R A WN 181 

dangling wrists came forward and shook hands. 
“Want a little game, or do you play?” went on the 
major. “Four’s no game at all. We’re looking for a 
fifth.—Just a little light game.” 

“I don’t know,” Brawn hesitated. “I’m not much 
good.” 

“So much the better,” interrupted the major. “I’m 
looking for somebody else for these birds to pick on. 
They cleaned me last night.” Brawn noticed the rest¬ 
lessness of his eyes as he stood there looking about. 
“Where’s Cole?” 

“Don’t know. He hasn’t been here all afternoon. 
Don’t know where he is.” He raised up in bed, slipped 
out his feet, and fished about for his slippers. 

“We’ll just go down to my room, if you don’t mind,” 
explained the major. “It’s quieter there. We’re not 
so apt to be disturbed.” 

Silently they filed out of the room into the hall. It 
w'as deserted. The major paused just outside the door. 
“Gotta keep an eye on that man Cole,” he laughed. 
“Heller with the ladies.—How does he do it, do you 
know?—Wish I had his system.” 

“Yes?” said Brawn. 

They passed the little office, furtively but without 
detection. At the extreme end of the hall they came 
to the major’s room and filed in silently and mysteri¬ 
ously. The major’s room was no different from any 
other room, except that in the centre there was a card 
table and in one corner there lay a disordered pile of 
luggage and boxes. 

Chairs were quickly got and a deck of cards and 
chips produced from somewhere in the midst of the 
junk pile in the corner. And in a few minutes the 


182 JOHN-N 0 -BRAWN 

game was in full swing. Only the conversation was 
restrained and the chips made no sound on the cloth- 
covered table top. Brawn felt himself getting tremen¬ 
dously interested. Just to be able to talk to other men 
on any other subject than health was very stimulating, 
very satisfying. There was a warm fellowship in the 
way the other four chaffed each other. They might 
well have been all of the same rank. Brawn began 
to lose. He did not care; it was enough just to get 
his mind off himself at any price. He bought his 
third stack of chips. And then the orderly brought in 
a tray of supper and Brawn rose to go. “Stay where 
you are, Lieutenant,” interposed the major. “Kin- 
^ kead!—Four trays. In here. Y’understand?—Just 
bring ’em in here.—Captain Menowski, Lieutenant 
Benning and Lieutenant Scholtz and Lieutenant Brawn. 
—And Kinkead!” he added winking. “Mum’s the 
word!” 

After supper they went on with the game and by and 
by the betting got stiffer. Brawn lost steadily. His 
face felt hot and his pulse was hammering. But he was 
enjoying himself. At nine o’clock they had the final 
pot with double stakes to help the loser, only Brawn 
did not win it. “Hard lines. Lieutenant,” said the 
major, as Brawn signed an 1 . O. U. “I feel like a 
robber getting you into the game and reaming you this 
way. Guess I slipped you my jinx. Well—give you 
another chance before long.” 

Brawn laughed and slipped out the door. Down the 
hall he shuffled quietly. Most of the doors were dark; 
occasionally there would be a lighted transom. But 
Upper West had gone to sleep for the most part. He 
opened his door and switched on the light. The room 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 183 

was frightfully bare. He’d had a good time. Usually 
he did not get much “kick” out of a poker party but 
somehow he had to-night. Poker showed a man up 
pretty average well after all. He had lost fifteen 
dollars* but it hadn’t hurt him. He had been a good 
loser. 

Suddenly he was aware of voices, the repressed buzz 
of voices, monotonous and low. It came from beyond 
the partition, from Cole’s room. He did not remem¬ 
ber that Cole’s transom had showed a light. He 
switched off his light, then opened the porch door, and 
in another minute was in his bed. If he had stayed in 
that next to the last pot he would have won ten dollars 
and that would have brought him nearer even. Well, 
next time he would know a little more about it. It took 
time to get one’s hand in again. Then he realized 
there was no light in Cole’s room, that his door was 
dark. And the low hum persisted, only now more bro¬ 
ken by silences. Brawn was excited. He rose up in 
bed and looked around, straining to see. But there was 
nothing. Cole’s half of the porch looked just like all 
the rest stretched out in a row. Besides, the sound 
came from the room, within. 

He lay down again and ’wondered. And the wind 
came soughing down the passage, making a mournful 
echo, and every now and then he' could hear the drip- 
drip of water somewhere. Well, it was none of his 
business. For a long time he lay silently watching the 
black ceiling. And the murmuring, after a while, came 
like a soporific and he drowsed. Later, as in a dream, 
he heard a door open, and a step sounded and there 
was a soft swishing of skirts over by the runway. He 
was too sleepy to open his eyes, too indifferent. Then 


184 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

in a little while he heard a bed creak and then a sigh. 
And then a little later some one began to snore, not 
far away, and his floating light-headedness carried him 
higher and higher. Silence settled down upon Upper 
West. 


CHAPTER XVI 


S LOWLY the weeks marched along. Daily the 
sky grew brighter. The sunlight was so hard, 
so perfect that it had a sort of brittleness. The 
air was drying up. But each day at sundown, or an 
hour or two before, there would come a west wind and 
clouds piling up from the mountains and then a sharp, 
vigorous shower that would leave the ground faintly 
steaming. In an hour it would be as dry as before. 
And now the plains were stretching away to the east¬ 
ward all dry and golden and hard and the line where 
plain and sky came together was floating away, as one 
watched it, on a shimmer of quivering sun motes till it 
seemed farther off than the sky above. It was not 
possible to conceive of change and yet to John Brawn 
who stood watching it from a porch across the hall, 
it was as most surely waiting for something as himself. 

June had come, was slipping by. Brav/n leaned 
against the concrete railing and gazed off toward the 
southwest. “Your view is better here than mine, Ben- 
ning. If I stretch my neck I can see the garbage en¬ 
closure of the officers’ mess. And to the right of me is 
the morgue. Think I’ll ask them to move me over on 
this side.” 

Benning looked thoughtful. Such a thing ^s view 
had not mattered much in his scheme of existence. He 
was an old Regular Army sergeant with a temporary 

i8s 


i86 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

commission of lieutenant. “Dust is pretty damn bad 
here sometimes.” He was lying flat on his back with 
his arms at his sides, looking straight ahead of him, his 
seamed and wrinkled face stern and impassionate. He 
could lie thus for hours with no apparent ravage to his 
nerves. “First time in eighteen years I’ve had a chance 
to get enough bunk fatigue,” he had told the ward 
surgeon one day. He was making better progress than 
any other man in the ward. 

“I don’t reckon it will be worth while to change, 
though,” continued Brawn. “I’m going to get out to 
an ambulant ward now in a few days.” 

Benning raised his eyebrows and rolled his eyes over 
in Brawn’s direction. “What d’you want to do that 
for?” he protested. “Those birds never go to bed at 
night. It’s noisy as hell, they tell me. What’s the 
matter with this?” 

“This isn’t the right sort of atmosphere for any 
man,” said Brawn. “It’s depressing. In order to be 
well a man ought to be cheerful and no one can be 
cheerful in this place. By the way, Benning, have 
you heard when they are going to start letting us 
out?” 

Benning showed not the slightest sign of comprehen¬ 
sion. 

“When they’re going to give us our discharge?” 
Brawn continued in explanation. 

Benning flushed and raised on his elbow. “Give us 
our discharge?” He repeated angrily. “I’d like to 
see ’em. I’ve only got eighteen months to go before 
I get retirement.—Like hell they will. Why,” he went 
on, his voice rising, “I’ve served eighteen years and six 
months next Friday and if they discharge me now, all 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 187 

that time will be wasted. I can’t re-enlist again. Not 
in this condition I can’t.—I never wanted this damn 
temporary commission anyway.” 

“I didn’t mean discharge all of us,” Brawn hastened 
to explain. “Only those of us who want to get out. 
Get discharged on application.” 

“What damn fool’d want to do that?” grumbled 
Benning lying back upon his pillow. 

“Well, some of us who have a business to go back 
to. Some of us who are running into debt on our 
officers’ pay. Got to make more. Living’s gone up, 
you know, since the war. One sixty-six doesn’t reach 
round a very big family.” 

Benning grunted. “Better leave well enough alone. 
Go back east and you’ll be bumpin’ off some of these 
days.—’S for me, they can keep me here forty years 
if they want to. They got me in this fix; now they can 
get me out.” There was no lusting for position or 
power in Benning’s heart. Perfection had moved 
ahead of him in his career, by just one rank. 

“Oh, I don’t mean just now. Later on I hope to go 
back.” 

Benning grunted again. Then the door opened and 
Captain Parker stepped out on to the porch. He 
looked quizzically at Brawn. Brawn had been im¬ 
agining that Parker was holding something against 
him. 

“What’s the big idea. Lieutenant?” Parker said to 
Brawn. “Seems to me there’s a rest hour in this ward 
from nine o’clock to eleven, isn’t there?” 

“I just came across the hall to borrow a book. Cap¬ 
tain. My legs get stiff lying in one position all day 
long.” 


i88 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

“They’ll get stiffer than that if you don’t take care 
of yourself. Better run along now.—How are you this 
morning, Benning?” 

Brawn slowly turned from the porch railing and 
shuffled across the floor through Benning’s dressing 
room and out into the hall. He forgot the book. 

Back on his own porch he encountered Cole placidly 
peeling an orange. “That man Parker’s an everlast¬ 
ing pest,’’ said Brawn. “Gets one idea and works it 
till it’s ragged. ‘Better go to bed,’ is all he knows. 
Ought to give us something to eat for a change. That 
might do as much good as going to bed.—I’ll say this 
for him: he is consistent. He never has but one idea. 
Bet he sold every man in Indiana one of his life insur¬ 
ance policies. A man would buy anything to keep 
from listening to him for a lifetime.” He crawled 
into bed. 

“What’s eatin’ on you?” said Cole without looking 
up from his orange. 

“I’ll sure be glad to get over in E-2 where they 
won’t be watching me every minute. This is a prison.” 

Cole was silent. After a while he spoke' casually: 
“Don’t know as how it helps much to get over there. 
You ain’t safe anywhere. Old John T. B. slips up on 
you almost any time and whales you behind the ears 
when you’re not lookin’. One of ’em bumped off over 
in E-2 this mornin’.” 

“What’s that?” 

“I say, one of the patients over in E-2 cashed in this 
morning.—Before they could get him back here.— 
Big mistake to die in an outside ward. It’s not being 
done. You’re supposed to do your dyin’ here in Upper 
West.—We’ll lose all our confidence in the place.” 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 189 

He chucked the peelings over the railing and began 
slowly to tear the orange apart. “Want a piece?” 

“Who was the man? Did you hear?” Brawn had 
never got to the point where he could digest such dis¬ 
cussion. His mind was suffering from malnutrition. 
It did not assimilate its hospital diet. 

“Didn’t know him,” said Cole. “A captain of 
artillery, I believe. Name Mellon.” 

Brawn shivered. “Not Captain Mellon?” he pro¬ 
tested. “Short, stocky man?—Been here about a 
month?” 

“Don’t know him. Never saw him.” 

“Why, he came here in the bus with me—same day. 
What do you know about that?” Brawn went on, 
slowly. The sunlight lay on the opposite roof in a 
bleak patch. To his nostrils came the odour of meat 
frying. Up to the right was a string of porches, two 
beds to a porch, and man after man—each waiting, 
lying there, waiting. 

“Found him in his room, in a rocking chair,” con¬ 
tinued Cole, his mouth full of orange. “Dead as a nit. 
Heart went bad’ they say. Never thought of looking 
at his heart. This is a hell of a place for a bad heart. 
Pflooey! Off you go.” He grinned. “Ever had your 
heart examined?” 

“No,” said Brawn. 

The orderly came with Brawn’s tray and set it on 
the railing. 

“Take this stuff away,” Brawn said to him. 

Cole looked over. There was a curious gleam in his 
eyes. “Don’t you do it, Kinkead. Bring it over here. 
—You’re crazy as hell. Brawn. Good chow. Pork 
chops and cabbage. What more could you ask? And 


190 


JOHN-N 0 -BRAWN 

here’s some more of those India-rubber strawberries. 
Just leave the tray here, Kinkead.—But don’t forget 
to bring me mine too. Gotta keep up my strength.” 
He glanced once more at Brawn and then began to eat. 

Brawn closed his eyes and tried to sleep. But in 
spite of his sincerest efforts the face of Captain Mellon 
would come and float about before his eyes. He could 
see him all humped up in the ambulance. Bronchitis! 
—people did not die of bronchitis often. There was 
not much the matter with him. That was what they 
all said. He heard Cole slip out of bed, but he did 
not open his eyes. Cole was probably laughing at him. 
It did not matter. They would probably bring Cole 
home some night on a stretcher, an aftermath of one 
of his surreptitious parties. He wouldn’t laugh any 
more then. That was a dead moral certainty. 

In a few minutes he heard Cole’s step again and 
something fluttered and brushed his hand. “Mail,” 
said Cole’s voice. He opened his eyes and an envelope 
was lying on the counterpane a few inches from his 
hand. “Thanks, Cole,” he said. 

He opened the letter and read: 

Dear Old Thing: 

I’m glad you’re feeling better. Somehow it doesn’t seem possible 
for anybody to be sick this gorgeous spring weather. The roses 
are in bloom and they cover the whole west end of the house. We 
have vases full of them. I went up on the Prospect car line last 
Sunday morning with Julia McKinnon and you remember the 
cliffs that come down to the tracks there about a mile above 
Basey’s? Well, the vines and shrubbery were thick—^honeysuckle! 
You never smelled such gorgeousness. They rustled as we swept 
past them and it was so cool and green and fresh and fragrant. 
River looks good too, but it’s muddy and I’ve an idea it’s still a bit 
cool. We’ve been having a lot of fruit and berries. Everybody’s 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 191 

home. Everybody asks about you. Don’t you think we could 
iron this trouble out here just as well as in Colorado? I’m sure 
I could look after you better. And it’s been lovely. You couldn’t 
be sick a minute, I feel sure. 

Then came a lot of gossip and small talk. 

Betty Hobson’s landed a man. Think perhaps he put one over 
on her at that, if any man could put one over on Betty by marrying 
her. They looked him up in Bradstreet’s and he listened like a 
million dollars. His name is Roy Colvin. He’s from Newark, 
New Jersey. There’s another Roy Colvin from Newark, so the 
story goes, and this other one is slimy with the stuff. All Betty’s 
Roy has got is a dime bank. But he’s a sweet dresser, so I guess 
Betty’ll be brave about it, inasmuch as the announcements were 
out before they discovered the horrible mistake. Mrs. Hobson 
has gone to drown herself at Miami. 

And by the way. Job, what’s to hinder my coming out to you? 1 
know it’s fashionable to live apart from your husband, but the 
horrid truth is I’m getting anxious to see mine. It’s plebeian and 
mid-Victorian and all that, but it’s a fact, I am. Find me a nice 
little room in that little village that you call Aurora. Sounds as 
if it might have a livery stable and a store and everything—except 
a tree. It wouldn’t cost so much. And John, dear, I can’t stand 
it here much longer. You’re not forgetting that, are you? You’re 
not so brave yourself—even if you do keep your mouth shut. I 
want to be near you, helping you bear this tiresome siege you’re 
going through. Not that I’m doubting for one minute that you’ll 
weather this little squall in fine fashion, but we might as well have 
these things together. Aurora may not be all it should be, but in 
some ways it would be a thousand times better than this. Besides, 
I need a trip. Be reasonable. Job. You believe me, don’t you? 
I’m missing^ you. Lots. 

Love, 

Phil. 

He smiled as he folded the letter and slowly shoved 
it back in the envelope. 

For a while a flood of memories came rushing into 


192 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

his brain: the soft green of the trees, the mellow gold 
of the sunlight, the echoes of tradition, of past genera¬ 
tions, warm and intimate, that would always come and 
hover about the old houses, along the lanes; the drench¬ 
ing rains and muggy nights, the sweltering heat, the 
miry roads, the sleet, the piercing cold, the mosquitoes 
and all. Louisville was a living place, a warm, a 
friendly place, a place of humanity. Here was empti¬ 
ness with nothing between one and a relentless God 
except a patch of blue sky. When one died here he 
was no more than a stone, no more than those endless 
brown plains lying beneath an unshaded sun. And 
Captain Mellon had cashed in—after a month of it— 
and the people in Louisville were being sorry for him. 
Brawn. They were probably talking about him in low 
regretful tones: “Poor John Brawn.—It’s too bad 
about John Brawn,” with just a suggestion of patron¬ 
age, of superiority. If he had been bumped off in 
France they would not have been sorry for him—even 
Phyllida. They would have been proud, instead. And 
after all there wasn’t very much difference. 

Rest hour passed rapidly. Promptly at five minutes 
after three Dorothy Peck arrived. She seemed brisk¬ 
er, brighter than ever. 

“I almost got another man for this economics 
course,” she said. “But then he could not come in 
with you—you’re too far ahead. I wish I could get 
more of the officers interested. Somehow you officers 
are not interested in anything. The enlisted men are 
way ahead of you. All the officers want to do is play 
cards and run out nights.” 

Brawn barely heard her. 

“Let’s see. We’re on page ninety-two, aren’t we? 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 193 

‘—Currency. •—That’s fine.—You know what currency 
is, don’t you, Lieutenant Brawn?” 

“Anything that circulates around, isn’t it?” 

“Ye-es. I suppose so. That’s an original idea. 
According to that I’m currency too, aren’t I?” 

“Well, aren’t you?” 

“I suppose I am. But you’re always putting in such 
funny, irrelevant ideas. This is economics we’re study¬ 
ing. To hear you, we might be reading most any sort 
of book on general subjects,” she paused and thought 
a moment. “Let’s read a little out loud. And then 
we can talk it over. I think we can get more out of it 
by talking it over.” 

“So do I,” said Brawn. 

“Here’s something I never thought of before. And 
yet it’s good sense too. ‘It will be economy for mer¬ 
chants to pay their debts with the cheaper gold sover¬ 
eigns, and the silver will tend to go out of currency 
into the bullion market, where it will fetch more sov¬ 
ereigns than it would as coin in the currency.’—Which 
is the cheaper now, do you know. Lieutenant Brawn? 
—Gold, or silver?” 

“I don’t think that makes any difference,” said 
Brawn. “Our silver dollars are just token money. 
A silver dollar hasn’t a dollar’s worth of silver in it. 
You can swap it for a gold dollar though that has a 
dollar’s worth of gold in it. What he says hasn’t any¬ 
thing to do with our money.” 

Miss Peck looked at him curiously. Then she 
opened the book again and was about to read some 
more. “Do you know?” she said, “I’ve an idea you 
know more than you make out. That you’re just kid¬ 
ding me along. Sometimes I think that. But then I 


194 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

suppose you re not. A man thinks differently from a 
woman.” 

“There isn’t anybody knows anything about econ¬ 
omics, really, Miss Peck. It’s all pretty much bunkum. 
Anything that has highly paid experts that do nothing 
but talk Is just bunkum. Miss Peck. I’m beginning to 
believe there’s nobody much knows anything much 
about anything.” 

She glanced at him questloningly. “You’re getting 
morbid again. Let’s read some more.” 

The sound of her voice was pleasant to him, and 
the breeze was rather warm and her profile quite 
pretty as she sat with head bent, book In lap. He did 
not hear a word she was reading, merely lay and 
watched the movement of her lips. She was a fuller, 
more rounded type than Phil; her colouring was high¬ 
er, her hands broader, likewise her shoulders. But 
It was good to look at her. Only It did not give one 
quite the thrill. 

Miss Peck closed the book. “My half hour’s up.— 
It’s getting more Interesting along here, don’t you 
think?” 

“Very much so,” agreed Brawn. 

Suddenly her face brightened. “I’ve a dandy idea.” 
She looked squarely Into his eyes. “You get a pass 
and we’ll go in town next week and see the Mint. They 
tell me visitors are admitted certain days.—Wouldn’t 
you love to go ?” 

Brawn turned away. “I don’t know,” he said quiet¬ 
ly. “Not for a while yet. I’m sticking close for a 
while. Thanks though, for offering.” 

Miss Peck looked disappointed. “Oh, all right. 
Some other time then. Good-bye, Lieutenant Brawn.” 


195 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

For a long time Brawn lay and watched the sky 
patch. Slowly it began to darken. Then he reached 
over to the bedside and got a tablet and a pencil. He 
held the tablet in his lap and thoughtfully chewed the 
pencil. He began to write. He covered page after 
page of paper, writing rapidly. Then he seemed to 
pause—letting his ideas settle. “As for your com¬ 
ing,’’ he wrote, “it can’t be done.—At least not just 
now. I’m getting along fine. If I got out to look for 
a place for you, it might set me back and I’d have to 
go over all this again. Let’s be patient, Phil. I hope 
you see what I mean. This is a game. And I’ve got 
to win it. I can tell what it takes from here better 
than you can from there. And don’t you worry about 
me for one minute. Love. John.’’ 


CHAPTER XVII 


G radually the passage of time took on the 
appearance of the rolling of a great wheel. 
The months were the spokes. Once a month 
came an examination. Once a month came the cold 
clammy fear of an unfavourable report to be followed 
by a dull depression. Brawn made no material prog¬ 
ress one way or the other. There came to his mind 
the notion that there would be no change. Life was 
but a monotonous drifting, lazy and comfortable 
enough but leading nowhere. Day followed day, 
dragging along without sensation. But behind his in¬ 
creasing torpor lurked the certainty of a hideous and 
swift climax if he but deviated from the enforced rou¬ 
tine. It was not to be expected that one could ever 
get well, become normal again. It was sufficient 
that one grew no worse, that one could live to feel 
the slipping of those endless days, dragging stupidly 
by. 

He had not been moved to an ambulant ward. For 
a while the promise, the possibility, of it, had been an 
incentive. But June passed and July, and still he 
stayed on—Captain Parker compressing his lips and 
shaking his head each time the question was broached. 
In August, Brawn ceased to think about it. The sun 
beat down upon the plains for long dazzling hours. 
About midway in the afternoon would come rising 

196 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 197 

clouds and a whirl of wind, swift, metallic rain, and 
then a rapid drying off. Every day was just the 
same. 

Brawn asked for a small table and a chair. The 
hardest time of the day was the few hours after sun¬ 
down. Somehow' it was the only time to shake his 
composure. Lying in the darkening shadows with the 
day sounds fading out with the light, he always felt 
much more alone. So he would go indoors and sit 
by the table for an hour or two and read, or write, as 
the spirit moved him. 

One evening, about the middle of September, he sat 
with elbows propped on the table edge, the light from 
his drop socket ringing about his head like a halo. 
Before him lay a Courier Journal, opened at the sport¬ 
ing page. At his right elbow lay a sheet of typewriter 
paper on which were scrawled some figures. Brawn 
had been idly calculating the possibilities of Louis¬ 
ville’s winning the pennant. There were so many 
games to be played. There was so much lead to be 
overcome. Then he had figured up the chances of 
some of the other clubs. Making these estimations 
had accomplished him nothing. Limply he let the 
pencil fall from his hand. It rolled on to the floor. 
There was a picture of the champion woman tennis 
player of the United States caught in a moment of tre¬ 
mendous activity. One foot was raised from the 
ground, the racket smashing down upon an invisible 
ball, the face distorted in lines of terrific strain. Slug¬ 
gishly he speculated on how long he could last in a 
tennis match. It did not fret him. He was too 
utterly limp to care. 

The wind was moving along the roof outside; it 


198 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

made a curious whining noise in the cornice. The 
droplight was swaying slowly to and fro, moving its 
circular imprint across the paper like a noiseless shut¬ 
tle. In the room beyond there was a low murmur of 
voices. Cole seemed never alone. 

Suddenly it came to Brawn with relentless clearness 
that he was alone. If he should die, he thought, there 
was no one in all that place who would display more 
than a passing interest. There was no one who would 
be sorry, really feel it—not in the least. He would 
not be missed. His room would be occupied by an¬ 
other within twenty-four hours. His name would be 
rubbed off the ward roll and another substituted for 
it. His charts would go in to Washington, a closed 
matter. File Number 73,766 would be finished. 
There would be a certain amount of clerical satisfac¬ 
tion in the closing of it. 

The murmur in the next room went monotonously 
on. It was a curious thing, this indifference that took 
hold on one. All one wanted was to be left alone. 
No one came to see him. He stuck strictly to himself. 
The contact that he had with the inmates was as casual 
as the acquaintance struck up in a railroad waiting 
room in some out-of-the-way station. Every one was 
a transient. He had given nothing; he had received 
nothing. For a while all he had wanted was to get 
out. Now all that he wanted was an endless succes¬ 
sion of eventless days that would spare him irrita¬ 
tion. He had nothing; the pajamas, the slippers be¬ 
longed to the hospital. The table and chair belonged 
to the Red Cross. The newspaper was his, but it 
would be thrown into the incinerator on the morrow. 
His sojourn was as bare of human symbols as though 


199 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

he were a log of wood going through a sawmill. 
Many years ago there had been another life. It 
seemed vaguely unreal, as if he had merely dreamed it. 
In all that past experience there was nothing that stood 
out now as a reality. Nothing had plumbed the depths 
of him, or if it had, ever, there was no memory of it 
now. People were but shadows; that past life a subtly 
glamorous but unstirring dream. His father was a 
tradition; his wife—he felt the faint, momentary ris¬ 
ing of desire which quickly subsided. He hoped she 
was getting along on the one hundred dollars he was 
sending her every month. He was getting sleepy. 
Heavy-lidded, he watched the slow moving of the 
circle of light across the paper. Softly to his ears 
came the droning of voices in the next room. He 
looked at his wrist watch. For a moment it was noth¬ 
ing but some numbers and two hands sprawled across 
a dial. Then he realized that it was telling him it 
was nine o’clock. Bedtime. Unsteadily he rose to 
his feet and stumbled to the door. 

The sudden rush of cool air roused him. The dress¬ 
ing room had been intolerably hot. He glanced at 
Cole’s door and then he smiled softly to himself. It 
was dark. Cole was having quite a case with some 
one. The murmur of voices had stopped; the girl 
had probably gone home. He wondered who she 
might be. Some one of the many women on the post, 
perhaps. It did not interest him. 

He dozed. Gradually oblivion slipped upon him. 
For a brief interval he heard the moaning of the wind 
in the cornice but it seemed miles away and ineffectual. 
Once he heard a cough. Sounds at night no longer 
roused him. 


200 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

And then some one screamed in his ear. He sprang 
up in bed. He was immediately awake and he was 
trembling. But the darkness lay about him black and 
still. For just a moment he began to feel that he had 
dreamed it when a door opened and some one rushed 
out of Cole’s room, a vague, sudden shadow that went 
streaking down the runway in the darkness. He 
caught a momentary gleam of white and then the light 
was flashed on in Cole’s room and a hoarse voice was 
talking. 

Brawn lay back in the covers. He was still trem¬ 
bling but a smile pricked the corners of his lips. And 
then he lay still and listened. 

He did not recognize the hoarse voice which sounded 
as if its owner might be irritated. And Cole’s voice 
surprised him with its calmness. Cole was laugh¬ 
ing. 

A shadow appeared at the door, and then the door 
opened and a man came out and peered around. 
Dimly, Brawn recognized that it was an officer. The 
porch was too dark and the light from the door was 
inadequate for him to see which officer it was. He 
surmised it was the officer of the day—on his rounds. 
The figure walked to the railing and leaned over, look¬ 
ing down for a moment. Then Brawn heard him 
grunt and then he went back into the lighted room. 

“You're going to get yourself in trouble. Lieutenant. 
Lights out, no visitors after nine o’clock.” 

“I know, Captain,” came Cole’s voice, suave, plaus¬ 
ible. “But she only got in this afternoon late. And 
I haven’t seen her for over a year.” 

“Visiting hours three to four in the afternoon. 
Lieutenant.” 


201 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

“But,” explained Cole, “the ward surgeon wouldn’t 
give me a pass and that was the only way we could 
work it.” He laughed. “She knew it was against 
the rules but we took a chance. Wish she hadn’t run 
off that a-way though. Sorta puts me in bad.” 

The captain’s reply was unintelligible. 

“Oh, but have a heart, Captain.” 

Again an unintelligible reply. 

“But I tell you. It was my wife. She just got in 
this afternoon, I tell you. You surely can’t blame-” 

The other voice came nearer the door. “Not that 
it makes any difference to me. Lieutenant. But the 
rules are definite and clear. Things are run loose 
enough in this place as it is. You should have asked 
for special permission-” 

“Listen, Captain, if she hadn’t run away that way, 
you wouldn’t have thought anything about it, would 
you? You know you wouldn’t.” The voice was get¬ 
ting louder, gaining in assurance. Then came a pause. 
And then in a cajoling tone: “I kept telling her every¬ 
thing would be all right, but she’s always been afraid 
of the army and army regulations.” 

Brawn smiled gently to himself; Cole was making 
out an elaborate case. 

For a few minutes there was silence and then Brawn 
was astounded to hear a door open and the hoarse 
voice, clearer, admonishing: 

“All right. Lieutenant. I understand how it was. 
But those things always come right back at me, you 
know. Watch your step in the future.” From the 
tone, the captain enjoyed being a good fellow. He 
was playing the role, too, at considerable risk, he 
w^ould have it understood. 




202 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

“Thanks, Captain.’’ Cole’s voice was grateful. 

“Good-night, Lieutenant,”—the captain paternally 
indulgent. . . . 

Two days later, in mid-afternoon. Brawn met Mrs. 
Cole. She came out on the porch through Cole’s 
room and impulsively threw herself upon her husband 
who had not quite recovered from the stupor of rest 
hour. She was wearing a dark blue suit of a clinging 
material, and the skirt was long and very narrow and 
twisted about her ankles as she leaned across the bed, 
so that it was with difficulty that she disentangled her¬ 
self. Then she sat back and looked at Cole. On her 
head was a piquant little hat of tan felt caught up at 
one side and with a long pheasant’s feather sticking 
out behind at a rakish angle. Immediately the air of 
the porch was permeated with a scent that was new 
to Brawn, shrieking sex and extravagant. One foot 
dangled over the edge of the bed—the skirt was caught 
up in a graceful festoon. It was a very small foot and 
the slipper had an absurdly high heel and a rounded 
toe. Brawn turned away his eyes and busied himself 
with his book. Every now and then, however, he would 
glance sidewise at them and invariably caught her eye. 
She was sitting on the bed, talking vivaciously to Cole, 
the little foot swinging to and fro restlessly, and she 
was looking all about her as she talked. 

Brawn felt curiously excited. He had not really 
seen her face and had had only a hasty glance at her 
figure. He suddenly decided it would be better for 
him to leave them to themselves. So he reached out 
for his bathrobe that was hanging on the corner of his 
bed, slipped his arms into it and then slid his feet to 
the floor, searching for his slippers. 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 203 

Cole looked over at him. “Come meet my wife, 
Lieutenant.” 

Brawn was slightly embarrassed. He shuffled across 
the porch. 

Mrs. Cole held out her hand. It was trim and 
smart in a long suede glove. Her eyes searched for 
his, were not content with a passing glance. They 
were very dark and very restless. She smiled a quick 
flashing smile and he could see a gleaming row of 
small, regular teeth. “What is the name?” she 
asked. 

Brawn flushed and told her. 

“Pull up a chair. Lieutenant,” said Cole. 

“No. No,” said Brawn. “I’ll only stay a minute. 
Was going down the hall to get a book.” 

Mrs. Cole was smiling at him, looking at him in¬ 
tently. He could not understand why he felt so ner¬ 
vous, and he could not look at her directly nor long at 
a time and yet felt himself wanting to. She was quite 
small, but the lines of her body as she sat across the 
bed suggested a full-blownness, a maturity, though in 
no wise grossly so. Her features were likewise 
small and regular and there was a tiny line sloping 
obliquely downward from the outer corner of each eye. 
It gave her the appearance of squinting slightly. 
And she had rouged her cheeks and her lips—a 
little. 

Brawn was silent. He stood leaning against the 
wall at the head of Cole’s bed. Mrs. Cole, smiling at 
Brawn and watching his face, reached out a gloved 
hand and pinched her husband’s cheek. 

Brawn moistened his lips. “How do you like 
Colorado, Mrs. Cole?” he said in a dry voice. 


204 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

She seemed to be studying him intently. Suddenly 
her eyes narrowed and she flashed him a dazzling 
smile. “I don’t know,” she said. Her voice was high 
and sharp and she drawled it through her nose. “I 
only got in to-day.” 


CHAPTER XVIII 


N O,” thought Brawn. “I’m going into a 
shell. I ought to get into things more—mix 
around.” He sat tilted back in a folding 
camp chair with his feet propped against the porcelain 
washbowl in the centre of one wall of his room. They 
had moved him the day before into E-2, an ambulant 
ward, at last. “I don’t believe I can beat this thing 
by myself.” The two large windows at the end of the 
room, curtained in dotted swiss, were open a few inches 
from the top. Behind him the glass door was shut 
and the curtains drawn. It was snugger and closer 
here than in Upper West. He had more of an in¬ 
dividuality. It would have been a most agreeable 
change if the new ward surgeon had not “pinned the 
crepe” upon him that morning. This new ward sur¬ 
geon was a lieutenant—a Lieutenant Koontz. He had 
heavy black eyebrows and a blue-black chin and very 
thin legs and a stomach. He smiled perennially, lift¬ 
ing the corners of his lips away from his upper teeth, 
letting his lower lip sag, except when he became serious 
—as he did when he had examined John Brawn. Then 
the smile would fade away into a lugubrious slump— 
likewise the voice. “Oh, no. Lieutenant,” he had 
said. “I should say not—you should not get a pass. 
You should be in bed—all the day. It is enough that 
you should walk to your meals. You’re in bad shape, 

205 


2o6 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

Lieutenant.” And then he backed away and gazed 
at Brawn mournfully. 

Brawn’s laugh was harsh. “You’ve all got the habit, 
haven’t you? What do you fellows read—a medical 
corps manual?” 

“I do not know what you mean, Lieutenant.” 

But nevertheless this constant warning had its effect. 
For a while Brawn sat with his feet propped against 
the washbowl watching the patch of deep blue sky out 
through the uncurtained upper half of his north win¬ 
dows. Indistinctly to his ears came the hum of con¬ 
versation. A group of officers were gathered around a 
card table at the far end of the porch. An army truck 
went lumbering by, its gears grating horribly. There 
was a road a few feet away from his windows; he 
could see the dim outline of the truck through the cur¬ 
tains. “Well,” he thought, and sighed, “I suppose 
there’s nothing else to do. But I wonder if they’re as 
gloomy with all the rest?” 

He rose to his feet and began taking off his clothes. 
He had had a momentary satisfaction in putting on 
his uniform again, a feeling that in a fashion he was 
ridding himself of the stamp of the hospital—^but 
evidently that was not to be. He kicked off his shoes 
and puttees, removed his blouse, loosened the collar 
of his shirt, and dragged himself up on the bed, a high, 
narrow thing on huge rubber-tired rollers. 

He had hardly composed himself when an orderly 
opened his door and tossed in a couple of letters. 
Mechanically, Brawn picked them up, expecting one 
of them to be addressed in Phyllida’s erratic hand¬ 
writing. But neither one was. He was faintly sur¬ 
prised; her Monday letter was already two days late 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 207 

and Phyllida had been more than ordinarily punctual 
in writing—as a rule twice every week. 

He tore open the first. It was from Mowbray 
Hicks. There evidently had been such a person as 
Mowbray Hicks. It was a cheerful note with the 
ostensible purpose of showing Brawn that he^ Mow¬ 
bray, was conscious of no change in the working of 
the world. 

Have been very busy. We’re trying to put a young lawyer on 
the bench here in Shelby. We want to get rid of some of the 
fungus. This Is a young man’s world, now, since the war. Guess 
you’re finding it so out in Colorado, too. 

No, Brawn had no such illusions. There was no 
such thing as youth. The doctors had put youth In a 
purple-tinted mortuary. 

Was down in Louisville the first week in September. The 
K. C.’s are building a drinking fountain in memory of George 
Ambrose. It struck me as a bit appropriate in view of the fact 
that George once sold bottles to the distilleries. But then you 
always liked him, didn’t you? I suppose I ought not to be 
facetious. 

And then came a lot of disconnected gossip in a light 
vein. Mowbray was trying hard to make It seem that 
it was a letter from one normal person to another. 
But at the end he forgot himself long enough to lapse 
into a normal solicitous tone: “Don’t hesitate to call 
on me, John, If I can do anything In the world for you.” 
Even the analytical Mowbray could not stand the 
strain of continued cheerfulness. He had to yield to 
a momentary spasm of commiseration. 


208 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

Brawn tossed the letter over on to the table. 
Somehow the thing vaguely disturbed him. It was too 
patently cheerful. He was a piece of wreckage, he 
knew—wreckage from the war just as much as a house 
hit by a shell. Maybe he could be salvaged—maybe 
not. But he didn’t want to have it rubbed in. Yes, 
there they were back in Louisville having as good a 
time as they could—folk coming back to town for the 
winter, theatres opening, leaves turning perhaps— 
though it was still a bit early for that—bright yellow 
sunshine and blue haze. And Phil—funny Mowbray 
did not say anything about Phil. No—he had not 
mentioned her—not a single word about her. It was 
the first time he had missed lauding her in almost 
maudlin fashion. Mowbray had always “thumped 
the tub” a little too heartily—as if he felt he had to, 
in some way. 

But then there was the other letter. He slipped his 
finger beneath the flap; he ripped it open. A thin slip 
of newspaper fluttered out upon the counterpane. He 
fished in the envelope for the accompanying letter. 
There was none there. The clipping was all there 
was. Funny, for any one to do that. 

He picked up the clipping and read: 

SOME SHOES FIT EITHER FOOT 

DIVORCE PLAINTIFF MADE DEFENDANT IN COUNTER CLAIM 

Mrs. Arthur N. Coleman thought when she secured all her 
elaborate evidence of the infidelity of her mate that her claim was 
as good as won. In the trial of the case, yesterday, before Judge 
Belton, it developed that Arthur N. Coleman himself is no mean 
sleuth. He testified that on numerous occasions his wife, Jennie, 
had been seen in public, at beer gardens and in questionable hotels 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 209 

with other men. He intimated that such breaches of faith had 
been even more frequent than he had any evidence to support, 
inasmuch as he is a travelling man with a large territory. 

Mrs. Coleman hotly denied all the charges. She is a large, 
striking looking woman of- 

Brawn let the clipping fall. He had a cold, dead 
spot in the pit of his stomach—indeed, that organ was 
as if detached from the rest of his body. 

“Oh, God!” he thought. “Now that’s come.” 
And then for several minutes he could not think co¬ 
herently at all. 

He just couldn’t take on the added weight of an¬ 
other trouble. It would kill him—that was all. Who 

had been the kind friend to send him- He picked 

up the envelope and turned it over in his hand. The 
address was typewritten. Well, it was a delicate kind¬ 
ness, he was sure. 

Phyllida had not written. Why had she not writ¬ 
ten? Too much occupied with that family of hers. 
He was no person to turn to; he was no good. They 
looked on him as “next to dead” back home. He was 
just a weight to her—she might even divorce him to 
clear her skirts. Why—he had never thought of it— 
she had even said as much that evening he and Am¬ 
brose had dinner there—the night Cloud had “horned” 
in. He was trembling all over now. She was a cool, 

calculating person, the kind to- And there was 

certainly nothing to look for in her hereditary im¬ 
pulses, if there was anything in that. As a matter of 
fact, her letters had been mere woodeny bulletins here 
lately: asking him how he was—telling him who was 
getting married, and all that futile kind of stuff. 

Lying in bed became at once unbearable. He would 





210 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

suffocate if he did not get up. He raised on his elbow 
and slid his feet over the edge of the bed. 

Some one knocked on the door. 

“Yeah,” said Brawn. 

Dorothy Peck came in. 

“Well,” said Brawn, “I was wondering how about 
our classes.” 

She walked across the room to the end windows and 
stood with her back to the big steam radiator. She 
looked about the room from cupboard to wash¬ 
bowl, to army locker. Something had changed about 
her. 

“When do we start?” continued Brawn, and then 
he saw that her lips were trembling. She would not 
look at him. 

“I’ve come to say good-bye,” she said. 

“Good-bye ?” 

“Yes,” she replied. Her tone grew brighter. She 
began to run her lead pencil along the corrugated top 
of the radiator. “Back to lola. Dad writes he can’t 
spare me any more. So I must be on my way.” 

He suddenly realized the fineness of her. “Yes, 
I can see how he couldn’t. But what are we going to 
do?” 

She looked down at the floor again and the sound 
of the pencil as she ran it along the metal furrow was 
harsh and nagging. “Oh, all of it has been nothing,” 
she said. “You deserved so much more—all of you.” 

He wondered then if she had realized her limitations 
all along. Making the best of makeshifts. Playing 
the game. He was thinking what it was going to be 
like without those ridiculous lessons in public finance. 
“I reckon,” he replied slowly, “if there was a choice 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 2 11 

of giving up—you or the doctors—why, it would be 
the doctors.” 

“That isn’t such a compliment after all, Lieutenant 
Brawn—from you.” She laughed. “I’ve gotten a 
lot out of it.” 

Her light blue dresses, were always starched to the 
minute. There was never a spot or a rumple any¬ 
where. 

“So you’re going?” 

“Yes, I’m afraid I am.” 

“When?” 

“This afternoon.” 

They were silent. 

Suddenly she looked up. Two bright spots of red 
burned in her cheeks. Her voice was brisk. “Well,” 
she said, “I must be hurrying on. I’ve a lot- of these 
boys to see.” She was holding out her hand and her 
eyes were shining. “Good-bye, Lieutenant Brawn.” 

“Why—a—good-bye.” 

Her hand rested on the knob. She paused and 
turned around, half facing him. “I hope,” she stam¬ 
mered, “you’re—you’re going, to be all right soon.” 

“I’m sure I shall.” 

“And,” she still hesitated, “I wonder if you’d—if 
you’d drop me a card—occasionally? I’d’ like to 
hear how you are getting along.” 

“Why, surely I will,” said Brawn. 

“Good-bye.” 

“Good-bye.” 

The door closed. 

For a long time Brawn lay quite still, looking out 
at the blue sky. Then he 'smiled a faint, wry smile. 
He kicked off the covers and got up. He walked over 


212 JOHN-N 0-BRAWN 

to the rocking chair where hung his clothes and began 
to dress. 

He pushed open the door of Major Bledsoe’s room. 

“I’m looking for some excitement- Oh, I beg 

your pardon!’’ 

There was a chorus of laughter. “You found it,” 
said the major. 

Brawn backed away and was about to close the door. 
The room was full of people—ofwomen. 

“No, no,” came a chorus and the major’s sharp 
little voice, “Come on in. Brawn. You’re amongst 
friends.” 

Rather timidly Brawn opened the door again and 
stepped in. “I’ll never go opening doors again— 
unless I’m asked.” 

“Why not,” replied the major, “when you have luck 
like this?” The latter was sitting, head leaning back, 
in a tall rocking chair. On the arm sat a girl in a 
grass-green frock, her arm resting lightly about the 
major’s neck. Her hair was, very yellow and her hat 
lay on the bed swathed in a honey-coloured veil. The 
major leaned back, displaying his skinny throat with 
the pointed adam’s apple moving slightly*up and down 
like a target. His eyes were dreamy; his little mous¬ 
tache points aggressive. He had laid aside his glasses. 
In the corner, by the washbowl, stood Captain Men- 
owski, likewise in a bathrobe, and another girl was 
trying to get something out of his eye. She was tall 
and dark and supple. She bent away from him grace¬ 
fully, his arm about her waist. Just for a moment 
did Brawn regard them. On an army locker at his 
feet, with her knees hunched up under her like a little 
girl, sat Mrs. Cole. She flashed him a smile, the lit- 



JOHN-NO-BRAWN 213 

tie crow’s-feet appearing in a network at the corners 
of her dark brown eyes. She patted the top of the 
army locker beside her with a glove. “Come sit 
down,” she coaxed. “It’s been awfully dull for me. 
You look better in your—in your uniform,” she com¬ 
mented, looking him intently in the eyes as he sat down 
beside her. 

The woman on the arm of the major’s chair giggled. 
“How else have you ever seen him, for God’s sake, 
Bernice?” She reached over and smoothed Bledsoe’s 
hair. 

Mrs. Cole dismissed her airily: “You’re crude some¬ 
times, Grace. You forget this is a hospital and you 
have to overlook certain things,” and then to Brawn, 
“So they’ve moved you over here? How perfectly 
fine.” 

Brawn was momentarily at a loss. She was most 
evidently not the conversational kind. One felt, rather, 
her presence. She was wearing the same costume, 
long clinging skirt, rakish little felt hat with the 
feather. Her lips were, if anything, redder than ever; 
he could see a thin crust above the lower edge of the 
lower lip. 

“Your husband,” he began, looking at her lap, “is 
he still-” 

She burst into a shriek of laughter. “He wants to 
know where Murray is,” she addressed the room. “As 
if I ever knew. Why, I never get within three jumps 
of him. Not in the last three years, I haven’t.” Her 
eyes were twinkling and yet they seemed to be reach¬ 
ing for him, desperately. 

Brawn flushed. “It can’t be you’re behind him all 
the time. Perhaps sometimes it’s the other way—re- 



214 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

versed—head for tail.” He paused. That was not 
just what he had meant to say. 

She looked at him curiously. 

“Where is Murray—your husband?” he went on 
bravely. 

She shrieked again. It was curious, the way she 
would be looking at him so seriously, so intently, and 
then break out in one of those spasmodic cries simu¬ 
lating laughter, with no warning change of expression. 
It was like a Jack-in-the-box and quite as startling. 

“He wants to know where Murray is again,” ad¬ 
dressing the room vaguely but gleefully. “Must be 
nervous, poor little boy.” She patted his hand. 

After a few playful little pats she allowed her hand 
to remain on his, there on the army locker top. It 
was soft and warm and moist and he could feel the 
edge of a ring against his knuckles. He sat stiffly, 
without moving. 

“It’s not that,” he explained at length. “I merely 
want to know which way to look for him.—Is he under 
the bed?” 

“Oh,” said Mrs. Cole, raising her eyebrows and 
assuming a mock confidential tone, “I believe he’s a 
live one. How suspicious he is.” She leaned over 
and shook a wisp of her hair in his face. “Don’t be 
afraid, little one. Murray never wastes his time look¬ 
ing for me. That would be too dull for him. No. 
Much too dull.” She leaned away and let her eyelids 
droop, suggesting weariness. 

Captain Menowski came and stood before them, a 
flat medicine bottle in one hand, a glass in the other. 
Captain Menowski was a tall, well built man of in¬ 
tense gravity and with regular features and lustrous 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 215 

brown eyes. Women habitually told him he should 
go in the movies. It was that that made him grave. 
He poured some colourless liquid from the bottle into 
the glass. “Three fingers apiece,’’ he said. “It’s 
hospital hootch. Don’t know whether it’ll kill you or 
cure you but I got it out of the medicine cabinet.’’ 

Mrs. Cole threw back her head and drained her 
portion at a gulp. Then she pressed her handker¬ 
chief to her mouth as she returned the glass. Brawn 
could see the tears start in her eyes. 

“Lieutenant?’’ 

“Just a little,” said Brawn. 

It was hot, atrocious stuff. It had not the slightest 
flavour of whiskey—was raw and flattish. But as the 
glass passed around the comments were reserved, re¬ 
strained, and complimentary. Any kind of post- 
Volstead alcohol needs must be treated with the ut¬ 
most respect. 

The six of them sat quietly for a moment, contem¬ 
plating their respective good fortune, when Grace— 
she at the major’s shoulder—rose to her feet: 

“Time to be going, children. Our husbands will be 
nervous.” 

There was a haphazard rising and pressing toward 
the door. The tall, lissome brunette put her arms 
about Captain Menowski’s neck and kissed him. He 
looked faintly annoyed. 

The girl in the grass-green dress—the major’s 
Grace—^was standing in front of Brawn. She slipped 
her finger in a buttonhole of his blouse. “Listen, 
Lieutenant,” she was saying, glancing archly, as she 
spoke, over at Mrs. Cole, “we’re giving a little party 
next Saturday night—down at the Piedmont Hotel. 


216 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

Just the crowd of us”—including them all vaguely. 
“Wouldn’t you like to come and make it six? Bernice 
wouldn’t mind, I’m sure.” 

“Surely he will,” echoed from them all. Mrs. Cole 
looked questioningly into his eyes. 

Brawn hesitated. He ought not. That was cer¬ 
tain. And the slightest tinge of repugnance came over 
him. The crowd was so obvious. But something was 
urging him from within, a restlessness, a desire to flee 
—to be running away somewhere. 

“It’s easy. Lieutenant,” said the major. “Won’t 
need a pass. We’ll all go in a car from the ward.” 

Brawn looked up at Grace. “All right,” he said. 
“Count me in.” And then he felt warm, excited—all 
over. 

The party walked down the sleeping porch to the 
solarium, talking in repressed tones. As they crossed 
the door a couple of officers on chaise-longues looked 
idly up at them. A moment later they were telling 
each other good-bye. Mrs. Cole pressed Brawn’s 
hand. “You’re not worried, are you?” 

Brawn looked down at her. “Why, no. Why do 
you ask?” 

“I thought perhaps you might be.—About Murray, 
I mean.” Her lips barely moved. 

Brawn’s scalp was tingling; he did not know what 
to say. He could hardly realize the role he was slip¬ 
ping into. 

“You haven’t heard?” 

“No.” 

She laughed a short little laugh. “I’m a new kind 
of war widow. He’s in—what you call it?—the 
brig?” 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 217 

“That SO?” Brawn responded vacantly. And 
then she gave him a wink and slipped through the door. 

Brawn walked back to his room. He was tired. 
He sat down in the rocking chair and stretched his legs. 
He felt decidedly vague—as if he had done something 
he was not exactly sure of. His face was very hot. 

Outside, on the back road, an automobile started 
up. He could hear the whir and then the deeper 
putter of the motor as it caught. There was a clank 
of gears and then the rush of starting and the crunch of 
wheels on gravel. It was passing the window. A 
woman laughed, loudly, rather musically, and the sound 
died quickly, swept away. 

So!—That was how it was. Nothing mattered— 
nobody cared.—Everything had gone to hell. 


CHAPTER XIX 


C URIOUSLY enough it was the suspicion that 
he had made a fool of himself that bothered 
Brawn. Women like the Bernices, the Graces, 
and the rest had never seemed like human beings in 
his past life. They were more like posters—highly 
coloured. They were not a part of normal life. And 
he did not know their vocabulary. He was a stranger 
to their mental processes—if they had any. There 
had been a fast, drinking set at home, but they had 
merely hovered about on the fringe of his conscious¬ 
ness. And before them he had been as mute as a raw 
traveller before an utterly outre bit of curio scenery. 
He never knew what was being said under the cir¬ 
cumstances. Moreover, the elusive, drinking set was 
always a few strides ahead of the plodders. They 
always got the cream of the new sensations—clothes— 
drinks—vernacular. They were quick, precise, well 
oiled, and intolerant. They rarely originated anything, 
but their advance agents were feverish to pick up the 
newest. They were pioneers in audacity. Such was 
Brawn’s estimate of a class he knew nothing of. 

And that was what was worrying him about Mrs. 
Cole. He felt that she would go further than he. 
In fact, he suspected her of continually oscillating on 
the verge. That was what she got out of life—the 
excitement of being a tight-rope walker. And he knew 

218 


219 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

that if his nerve failed before hers she would ridicule 
him. Insofar as he had been an unknown quantity 
he had been a possibility. But the test would come 
and—was it worth it? 

It was two o’clock. Every now and then Brawn 
would look at his watch just to keep in touch with time. 
He was nervous. It was Saturday afternoon and the 
thoughts of the impending party filled his mind with 
unrest. He was trying to be cool and circumspect 
about it. There was no reason why a man could not 
mix around with humanity. The world was to be lived 
in and all he had to do now was to live. They had 
taken all other alternatives away from him—thought, 
occupation, pleasure. And he had just lately accused 
himself of retiring into his shell. These people and 
their setting formed a background to modern life. 
They had no moral precepts. They regarded all con¬ 
ventions as merely serving the need of the moment: 
property was sacred so long as it was your own; law 
was endurable in so far as it protected you from annoy¬ 
ance; marriage a temporary arrangement of conven¬ 
ience, a picturesque and rather pathetic tolerance 
toward a worn-out idea—romance; work necessary 
sometimes to bring you freedom. That was all. 
Such was his estimate of them. So how could this 
party hurt him’ or these people? He at least had 
used his brain to think, not merely for his own amuse¬ 
ment. He had the advantage of them there. Of 
Murray Cole he did not think at all. 

He had turned the bed clothes and the pillow so 
that he lay facing the door and through the filmy cur¬ 
tain he could see beyond the sleeping porch to a dusty, 
bedraggled area flooded with sunlight. Every now 


220 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

and then he would realize poignantly that there was 
a normal world outside this hospital—that there were 
other things than dust and weeds and gray walls and 
rubber heels and smug medicos and temperatures and 
night sweats. And at such times would arise in him 
a frantic spirit of revolt—a desire to put on his 
clothes, plain, inconspicuous civilian clothes, and flee— 
flee for days and days and weeks and weeks, until this 
place of fearful suggestions should be left for ever be¬ 
hind. And to-night he was to leave it temporarily for 
the first time—regardless of consequences. For a 
few hours he might even forget there was such a place. 
His heart was thrumming. He reached over the fin¬ 
gers of his right hand and compassed the wrist of his 
left. One, two, three, four—his pulse was running 
away. He lay back, with his hands at his sides, mak¬ 
ing himself consciously limp—like a mass of jelly. 
This was Captain Parker’s prescription as to the 
proper way to chase the cure. He half closed his lids 
and watched the starchy curtain of his door, breath¬ 
ing slowly and regularly by an effort of control. It 
would not do for him to go beyond his strength on this 
first trip to town. He might not get another chance. 

He heard steps along the bare floor of the porch 
outside, and then a shadow passed his window. It was 
a woman’s figure. She paused at his door. Probably 
looking for some one. She was reading the card on 
his door. Queer that the nurse had let a visitor pass 
before the rest hour was over. He looked at his 
watch. It still lacked fifteen minutes of three. Curi¬ 
ously enough the woman reached out her hand to the 
knob. And then the door opened. 

Phyllida stood framed in the doorway. 


221 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

He lay and watched her. His heart gave one tre¬ 
mendous bound and then he was no longer conscious 
of it. 

She came to the bed, bent over him, and kissed him 
—on the forehead. She did not say a word. 

Then he threw his arms about her and drew her to 
him. He pressed his face against her breast and there 
came a hot stinging in his eyes and a great cold lump 
In his throat. And the pain In his heart began slowly 
to melt away; he had not known till then that there had 
been a pain there—all these months. 

After a while she drew away and sat on the bed¬ 
side, watching him. She was as beautiful as ever and 
there was something else more beautiful than beauty, 
in the slight tremor of her lips, the moisture that 
beaded her lashes. He reached out for her hand. 

“What are you doing here?” he said softly. In the 
face of a sudden rising fear. 

She leaned over close and looked him In the eyes. 
“I’ve come to take you away from this place,” she said. 

For a moment he made no reply. And then: “I’m 
not sure, dearest, that it’s just the best thing to do.” 








BOOK III 


PHYLLIDA RETURNS A FEW BOTTLES 



CHAPTER XX 


AS THEY left Denver the air was heavy with the 
yLjk scent of burning leaves. The sun hung, a 
JL 3 k. lazy, golden ball in an opalescent haze and 
in the shaded corners of the roofs still lingered lacy 
encrustations of frost. The dust churned up in a 
pungent cloud from their automobile tires and settled 
slowly over the grass by the roadside. Phyllida 
tucked the corner of the rug about Brawn’s shoulder. 

“Don’t make such an invalid of me,” he whispered 
to her with a nod at the chauffeur. 

“Pshaw,” replied Phyllida. “Don’t be so stingy 
with yourself. I haven’t had the luxury of being 
needed and appreciated for so long—you surely won’t 
begrudge me!” She gave the blanket another twitch 
about him. “If that birdie ever had eyes in the back of 
his head he’d have had ’em put out years ago. He’s a 
seasoned campaigner.” She smiled down at him pleas¬ 
antly, little wisps of her ash-gold hair twisting and 
curling about her temples. “You must forget you 
ever had a skin. Job—not be sensitive about anything. 
If I wanted to kiss you—right here—you shouldn’t 
mind. This is something like it, n^est ce pasT^ 

“I don’t suppose I should really,” laughed Brawn. 
“But where’d you get the idea my skin was thin? It 
isn’t, you know—not at all.” 

“Well, then, let’s not talk about your skin nor my 


225 


226 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

skin nor what we have in them. I’m liking this 
weather you’re having for me.” 

It was early afternoon and they had left the city 
behind and were rolling along gently, paralleling the 
great mountain range that guards the plain, and the 
sky was of screened cerulean fading off and blending in¬ 
to the more sombre tints that lurked in distant chasms 
and crevasses. On either side of the road were fields 
of alfalfa, past their last flower, and rows of gaunt 
and dry cottonwoods parched to their very roots. 
Occasional farmhouses peeked from clusters of trees, 
some plain and white and rambling, others with balus¬ 
trade and turrets of rotting wood, survivors of the 
much-lamented “General Grant Period” of architec¬ 
ture and manners. The West had apparently bor¬ 
rowed with a free hand. Other cars whizzed past 
them, going eastward: one filled with coated and veiled 
tourists, belated in their perennial return and hurrying 
from habit, and another piled high with furniture and 
bedding, and taking its disconsolate time. “Going to 
the mountains,” said Phyllida, “is apparently not be¬ 
ing done—to-day.” 

Brawn smiled vaguely. He smiled at the mere 
sound of her voice. The sharp pressure of the wind 
upon his cheek, the kaleidoscope of colour blurring 
pleasantly, the sudden, insistent rise of an odour all 
outdoors and unknown and alluring and then fading 
or rather blending into another as strange—he felt 
as if he had been miraculously recalled to life. He 
did not trust himself to talk; and the rapid motion of 
the car, though easy, kept him breathless. He slip¬ 
ped his hand over under the robe until it touched Phyl- 
lida’s—a quick, experimental touch—and he felt her 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 227 

gloved fingers tighten over his and hold them fast. 
“You must have been mighty busy this past week,” 
he said, musingly. 

“Oh, by the way. Job. I never did get that lease 
for you to look over. The real estate man that 
rented me the house was a sweet old Rip Van Winkle 
—doesn’t even know the war’s over. He wanted to 
charge me seventy-five dollars a month.” 

“Gosh!” said Brawn, weakly. 

“But he didn’t get it,” she quickly added. “We pay 
thirty until June first and fifty from then on. I told 
him his cottage would be empty and not earning any¬ 
thing all winter. He had not thought of that.” 

For two hours they kept to the plain and then at a 
little village they turned sharply to the west and ap¬ 
proached the range. The sun was sinking so that the 
crest glowed with its proximity and keen little stabs 
of wind made the single robe seem thin and porous. 
Then to the right a shoulder of dull red rock unfolded 
from the landscape and stood outlined against the 
sky, a prehistoric battlement, solemn and tremendous. 
Immediately it was gone and they dipped into a valley 
fringed with cottonwoods and withering birch and 
golden aspens that whistled as they passed. Through 
ajiother village presenting a row of squat shops with 
fronts of galvanized iron—a garish gasoline station 
picked out in glaring orange—a sign advertising 
chicken dinners, a cheerless, bleak message in the ris¬ 
ing wind—and the sunlight flooding all, thin and yel¬ 
low and cold. They bumped across a railroad track 
and the village was gone and the road went winding 
between rocky slopes and began to climb. 

The mountains were approaching. As they slipped 


228 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

along, with the shadows growing longer and deeper 
there came a sound like whispering in a topless vault. 
And the edge of the wind became sharper. Deep 
down within him Brawn felt a lifting—an expectancy. 
It was a sort of excitement veneered over with calm. 
The something within him was threatening to become 
too big for his body. The hospital was gone—left 
far behind, with its shrivelling, its nagging, its despair. 
Here it would not matter about him, his health or how 
he preserved it. Nothing in this climbing waste had 
regard for such trivial matters. 

“I wish some of ’em could see this.” 

“Who?—What do you mean?” 

“Some of the old crowd—oh, any of them. I 
a- This is new to me. Bigger than anything.” 

She flushed, but was silent and a sudden thought of 
her mother invaded the peace of his mind. He looked 
at her and wondered if she could be thinking of that, 
too. But it was nothing to bring up now. He had 
burned that nasty clipping and would never mention 
it to her—never. She might tell him, if she wanted 
to, but he would never mention it. 

“I doubt if they’d bother,” she suddenly broke the 
silence. 

“Bother? Oh, yes, I see. But why not?” 

“Why? Oh, times have changed. There Is no 
old crowd. It’s every man for himself. It’s disin¬ 
tegrated. Don’t seem to have anything in common 
any more except being bored. And the new bunch! 
I should say not. Nothing so quiet as this for them.” 
She was watching the road unwind. “You couldn’t 
travel with them. Job—they’re geared too high.” 

The car slowed down and crept across a precarious, 



JOHN-NO-BRAWN 


229 

narrow bridge; beneath, dark rushing water swept 
grumbling over jagged rocks, throwing up a spume that 
was almost crystalline. The boards of the bridge rat¬ 
tled for a moment, there was a bump and the creak of 
a loose plank and the whir of the gears, and the bridge 
was gone; the stream wandered off behind a rock. 

“Maybe,” said Brawn, “I’ve not been so out of 
things after all.” 

“Not much more than you would have been at home. 
It depends on what you mean by ‘things.’ ” 

Now, he thought, they would talk about it, but the 
intense look that had momentarily hardened her fea¬ 
tures passed, leaving them dreamy and indifferent 
again. 

The sun hovered above a dim blue line of pines on 
a distant crest. Before them the road unwound, hug¬ 
ging a rough wall of stone on the right. To the left 
was a stretch of scrambled rocks and underbrush, and 
beyond, a patch of deep blue pines stood clustered at 
the foot of the opposite slope. They turned a corner 
and all of this to the left fell away and dropped into 
a bitter chasm whence came the far-off, cold tinkle of 
a waterfall. The road hung as if suspended in mid¬ 
air; far below, the tree tops moved to and fro in a 
misty blur; all about them, like the sides of a cup, 
towered ragged, irregular cliffs' feathered with dull 
blue pines, cold and motionless; and through a cleft 
near the summit, to the left, a single dazzling saw¬ 
tooth, a mountain top all pellucid ice and snow, glit¬ 
tered and winked in the clear pale sunlight like a 
lantern poked down in a well. “Oh! There!” said 
Phyllida. 

They climbed and climbed. Came long stretches 


230 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

of dense blue woods through which the road struggled 
like a healing scar. And down these woods the wind 
swept, whispering wearily. Came endless slopes of 
rock. And up these slopes the pine trees marched in 
Indian file against the sky, bending forward, toiling 
toward the summit which they never reached. 

The sun dipped again. A sharp black line of rock 
was cutting it in two. A shimmery nimbus of gold 
flashed across a bottomless valley and lay for a mo¬ 
ment upon a charred and blackened slab. Windrows 
of pines lay one upon the other like a tangle of tooth¬ 
picks dropped on a table. Each naked trunk stood out 
stark and blackened in the golden glow, and beyond 
them the snow caps flickered and sparkled in rainbow 
flashes and then went out. 

“It doesn’t matter much what we do here,” said 
Brawn. 

“Oh, no,” whispered Phyllida. 

“By the way, did you check out all the money from 
the bank in Denver?” 

A half hour later they breasted a ridge and below 
them, far off, lay a great, green, grassy bowl. About 
it in a circle rimmed the mountains and across it the 
cloud shadows streaked, faint and long. There was 
a little cluster of white houses, and apart, an L-shaped 
building, yellow as taffy and with a bright red roof, 
stood on the crest of a swelling mound and faced the 
sunset. 

“It’s a pretty little place, don’t you think?” said 
Phyllida. 

“Is that it?” 

“That’s the village. We’re a mile away—over to 
the right.” 


231 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

They stopped at a tiny real estate office and got the 
key. And then out a sandy road to the north they 
went, across the meadow, as the twilight gathered and 
the rose lights faded from the sky. 

Then through a wide country gate, one corner of 
which scraped the ground as it swung back, around a 
tiny knoll, and a cottage appeared tucked up under the 
shoulder of the knoll, with its gable roof pulled down 
over its eyes. The brakes screaked as the car came 
to a stop. 

Brawn clambered out. He was stiff and cold, in¬ 
terminably so, and yet it caused him no irritation. He 
was alight with excitement. The little house with its 
soft brown logs, the shadowy depths of the screened 
porch across the front, seemed to be regarding him 
appraisingly. Against the west wall, at the corner, 
a clump of yellow aspens was wagging its leaves at 
him. Here was home—really, truly home. 

He climbed the steps to the porch. A little eddy of 
dust and trash swirled across his path. The front 
door, painted green, and half glass, barred his way 
and suggested delightful uncertainties behind its white 
curtain. Directly Phyllida joined him, rattling her 
keys. “I hope Mr. Bruce had the fire laid, as I asked 
him. Brrr! It’s cold.” 

Then the door was open. They walked in—peer¬ 
ing. First there was a room, shadowy and low- 
ceilinged, with green burlap covering the walls. 
Against the near wall stood a plain oak dining table. 
Before them was a sheet-iron drum for burning wood, 
and a chair or two. Phyllida stepped over and lifted 
the cover of the drum. “He has,” she said. 

“Sit down. Job. I’ll scrape up a bite to eat and then 


232 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

you for bed.” She touched a match to the layer of 
pine needles and in a moment the drum was roar- 
ing. 

“Say, Phil, this is a palace,” he called to her. He 
could hear her tinkering about in the kitchen beyond 
one of the squatty doors. And he stretched out his 
legs to the warmth and leaned his head back against 
the head-rest of the rocking chair. Now he would 
begin to get well. There was joy and anticipation in 
the prospect. 

In a little while Phyllida brought in a tray with a 
steaming coffee pot. She set the table and then sat 
down across from him in the candle light. They had 
coffee and toast and an egg apiece. And Brawn’s eyes 
were shining. 

It is trite to say that food tastes better in the coun¬ 
try or in the mountains. It does not, after the first 
ten years. But Brawn sighed, after a while, and 
pushed back his chair. 

“Phil, old girl!” he smiled at her. “You have led 
the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt.” 

She smiled back at him and then watched the candle 
piling its tallow on the candle-stick base. 

“Reckon it'll stretch,” he went on. “The ninety 
dollars?” 

“Ninety?” she said. “I thought it was eighty.” 

“Ninety. I get ten dollars for you.” 

She smiled again, sleepily. “Think I’m worth that. 
Job? Leave it to me. I’ll manage.” 

He went to bed. He slid shivering down between 
frigid sheets. His bedroom was a black box with a 
resinous smell. He could hear Phyllida stirring about 
in her room, which was the room adjoining, for some 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 233 

time, and he lay and stared at the black ceiling and 
was happy. 

And then after a while the homely, friendly little 
noise ceased and all he could hear was the rustling of 
the wind in the aspens outside his window and then a 
stirring and a settling. Something seemed to come up 
near to the house and sit down, watching. But there 
was no one there, of course. And then there 
came to his ears a gentle sound, a sound as of a 
myriad fairy feet treading the ground, the leaves, and 
the needles—a sound so soft as to be almost impercept¬ 
ible and yet a persistent, ubiquitous sound. It was 
curious coming out of that stillness. He raised up on 
his elbow. The air was sharp and fresh against his 
chest. He peered out the window behind him. There 
was a faint gleam. He strained his eyes and looked 
closer, trying to make out some one sensible outline— 
a tree, a rock, a line of hill top. Before him stretched 
the dim, white surface of the ground. It was covered 
with snow. 


CHAPTER XXI 


S AY, Phil, we’ve a view from our door,” Brawn 
called over his shoulder. “Reckon it comes in 
on the thirty per? Makes one feel it’s a waste 
of time not to be an artist. Just look at the sunlight 
on that cleft peak.” He was standing in the doorway 
with a bathrobe over his pajamas, his feet in thick, 
lined, felt slippers. Across a rolling meadow that 
dipped gently away from the cottage to a grove of 
evergreens in a fence corner, the snow lay in a thin 
smooth mantle. The sky was faint and blue and very 
distant and about the mountain crests there was a 
curious ruddy glow that softened their outlines. 

“I’ll pull your chair out there after breakfast. You 
can have six months of that if you like it,” answered 
Phyllida from the distance. There was a persistent 
sizzling noise and a popping of dry wood. 

Brawn turned in the door and reentered the room. 
He wandered about, hands in pockets, studying the 
walls. His hair was carefully brushed in front, wetted 
until it was slick; behind, it stuck out like a rooster’s 
tail. “Hullo,” he said. “Here’s old John Bunyan 
—^what’s the guy’s name?—going through a bagful of 
tricks. Here’s the devil—Apollyon—selling him 
something. With his tail all crooked up over his 
shoulder. And here’s—what’s his name?—^being 
vamped by three dames a le Greque. Here’s”—he 


234 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 235 

chuckled—“the pearly gates and a rocky road leading 
up to-” 

“Move, Job,” said Phyllida. She came, head low¬ 
ered, with a tray laden with smoking dishes. “Don’t 
know why I use this silly little thing. Might just as 
well bring things in by hand. We’ll hang that atro¬ 
city in the spare bedroom.” 

They sat down. “Rather like it,” said Brawn. 

There was a crisp, fresh feel in the air, even in the 
dark little room. There was an intimate way in which 
the green walls seemed to lean inward. And Phyllida, 
as she poured her coffee, with her hair all piled and 
tousled on top of her head* was so delightfully matter 
of fact. Brawn laid down his fork. “Phil,—a—a 
—sweetheart,” he began soberly. “Oh—Gosh, this 
is great.” 

She looked up at him gravely. “What is? You 
mean the breakfast? I’ve burned the toast.” 

“You know perfectly well what I mean. I-” 

“Did you sleep well. Job?” 

“Great. What I mean is-Well, it’s just like 

camping out.” 

“You’ll get over that feeling in about a week.” She 
rose to her feet and carried the coffee pot kitchenward. 

She returned. Brawn was studying the drum. 
“Have you got enough wood?” he asked. 

“Hope so. Twenty cords.” 

“Who’s going to cut it for you?” 

“Why, I got it already cut. Don’t you bother your¬ 
self about such things. I’ve got everything attended 
to. Have some more coffee? No? Well then, 
come on. I’ll drag your chair out on the porch.” 

He sat and watched the lights swell and fade on 





236 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

the mountain slopes, the changing tints. Beginning at 
a point straight ahead—in the army it would have 
been known as twelve o’clock—climbed a distant sierra 
of bleak and towering shapes, dazzling in the sunlight 
on their eastern slopes, pale and blue and ghostly and 
shimmering on the opposite. Nearer, and all about 
the valley, rose lesser hills, some wooded with spruce 
and pine in dark splotches against the snow, others 
bare and gray and rock-ribbed. Over to the right 
was a mountain shaped like a hen coop and on its near 
side the aspens were clustered thick, like rust. The 
sunlight was dazzling and Brawn could hear the faint 
drip of water from the eaves on the eastern side al¬ 
ready beginning. In the house he could hear Phyllida 
moving about, whistling shrilly a tune which was new 
to him. A gush of sentimental warmth came crowding 
into his throat. 

“Phil,” he said, a little later on when she joined him 
for a bit of a breathing spell as she called it, “I don’t 
like your doing all this work. And me lying up here, 
doing nothing.” 

She was rummaging in a sewing bag. “Don’t be 
silly. That’s my job. Yours is to sit there. Let’s 
not go over that again.” 

“I know,” said Brawn, “but still-” 

They sat for a long time in silence. The sun was 
getting quite warm and it was evident that the snow 
would be nearly all gone by noon. 

“When I came out here,” said Phyllida, “to look 
at the house, there were deer tracks in the snow— 
clear up to the kitchen door. And there is a family 
of young rabbits under the house. Very poor judg¬ 
ment of the rabbits to have children so late in the 



237 


JOHN-N 0-BRAWN 

season, don’t you think? Or it may be that they feel 
the softening of civilization—living under a real house 
—and don’t have to bother about precautions.” She 
looked up archly and her face was flushed. “I must 
confess, Job, that this pioneer stuff thrills me to death. 
I like to think of myself sitting in the doorway with a 
rifle across my lap and the snow and the wolves howl¬ 
ing outside, and ten miles to more gunpowder. 
Brrrmp! Instead of that all I’ve got to do is go one 
mile to the village for milk for you.” She stooped 
over and bit off a thread. “I’m glad you haven’t got 
a raging thirst, old dear. It would make all sorts 
of complications. Though it might”—she considered 
thoughtfully—“add some interest.” 

Brawn watched her silently. Slowly the realiza¬ 
tion came over him: she was his wife. This graceful, 
colourful, living creature was his wife. In the code 
of a few years back, his property. Even in the most 
modern acceptance she was the most intimate factor 
in his life not of himself. Until now she might just 
as well have been—his sister. Nineteen-seventeen 
seemed ages ago. He had been so busy with himself 
that he had not had time to consider what other people 
might be thinking of him. And now here she—Phyl- 
lida—was doing this for him. She was slurring over 
it as it might be expected she would’ but she was doing 
it for him. There was nothing to say to that. 

After a while she rose to her feet and flicked her 
fingers at him. She went indoors. Directly he could 
hear the pans rattling in the kitchen. There wasn’t 
any further proof needed. He caught a look at the 
cold barren ridge of ice and snow and rock across 
the southwest and laughed. 


238 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

The afternoon wore slowly away. About four 
o’clock she came and joined him for a little while— 
the sewing bag presenting sufficient excuse for idleness. 

“Gee!” said Brawn, after a long while. “If this 
just keeps up long enough, just like this. I’ll be in fine 
shape.” 

She was intent on her sewing. After a bit: “Your 
cough is much better already, don’t you think?” 

“Cough? I’ve never had a cough. I should say 
not.” 

Still she was intent on her sewing. “Then how can 
they tell there’s anything the matter with you?” 

He laughed, bitterly tolerant. “You don’t know,” 
he said. “Nobody knows. You can be apparently 
in blooming health and only three jumps ahead of the 
undertaker. That’s the advantage of being in the 
army. They always tell you how sick you are. You 
can’t fool yourself.” 

She looked at him curiously. “I see.” 

“But,” he went on, “if a man could sit In a place 
like this and have the right kind of food and compan¬ 
ionship like this, why, he could get well in no time, 
chasing without the labels.” 

“How long would it take, do you think, Job?” 

Brawn considered the range. “Oh—a year. May¬ 
be two years.” 

Silence. 

“I’m not such a tonic after all, then. I don’t work 
fast. Come on. Let’s get in. Mustn’t get chilled.” 

He wandered about the sitting room. He stood be¬ 
fore a high, narrow bookcase built in the wall, reach¬ 
ing clear to the ceiling. His eyes wandered slowly 
down the rows of books, and presently he pulled one 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 239 

out. “Huh!” he exclaimed—Phyllida was in one of 
the bedrooms straightening up. “Musta had a big 
family in this house. Most of the books on how to 
raise children. ‘The Proper Care of the Young’ 1 ” 

“Maybe there was just one offspring. People don’t 
read books when they’re raising a large family. The 
less time one has the less he wastes on technique and 
the more he gets done.” 

He stood before the bookcase studying the con¬ 
tents. Was that a dig she was taking at him? Per¬ 
haps not. She usually spoke out what she thought. 

He walked over to the window and drew back the 
curtains. The window faced the west. Out from 
the crest of the near hill on the western horizon floated 
a feathery canopy of cloud with patches of deep blue 
showing through. The fleece was tinted from flaming 
crimson to softest yellow and mauve, and as Brawn 
watched it it changed in colour, without moving, and 
the light on the ground with it. Not a house was in 
sight, not a spiral of smoke. There was not a sound. 
Immediately there came upon him the spell of the 
solitudes, that complete acceptance that is mingled 
with uncertainty, that satisfaction that is tinged with 
yearning—beside which self is utterly trivial. He was 
not thinking—merely feeling. He felt a touch on 
his elbow. And then an arm slipped around his waist 
and then there was the warmth of a body. And the 
feeling slowly passed away—the awareness of things 
outside. No longer did he see the clouds drifting off 
from the mountain edge like scum from the edges of 
a pool. He was very sure. Things were entirely as 
they should be. 

All that evening the thought persisted. He was 


240 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

gay, even boisterous. Phyllida did not talk much. 
That was as it should be. She was busy with her 
sewing and sat with it in her lap. Her head, bent 
over it with the candle light deep yellow behind her, 
bewitched him, the soft ruddy tints in her hair, the 
quiet set to her lips, the curious smile about her eyes. 
“How can,” he thought, “such beauty exist and not 
proclaim itself?” And then: “It’s mine. It’s mine. 
It’s mine.” But he said nothing. 

At nine o’clock she looked up and smiled. “Bed, 
Job.” 

He stumbled across the threshold and kicked off his 
slippers and crawled in between the stuffy covers. 
There came a ruddy glow through the door which he 
had left open. It had been agreed that he should do 
so—for the time being at least. Then there was a 
soft rustle and the light disappeared. He settled back 
upon his pillow and his mind shifted to other things. 
He heard the wind spring up and begin stirring the 
aspens. A thin dry fluttering it was. He looked 
through the elongated strip that was the window from 
an oblique position and saw the ground shimmering 
cold in the moonlight. It was as cold as skimmed 
milk. And then far off down the valley he heard the 
yap of a dog and then many repeated yaps, sharp and 
with a hysterical catch at the end and then a prolonged 
000-000-000. For a moment the air was alive with 
the sound and then in an instant it all stopped. He 
was watching the ceiling wide-eyed. He realized that 
the light was on again in the room outside—the square 
ruddy glow of it was before his eyes. He had heard 
no returning footstep and there was not a sound in 
the room. He wondered if everything might be all 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 


241 


right. He edged over to the side of the bed and slid 
out on to the floor. The boards were cold and hard 
to his bare feet. He tiptoed noiselessly to the door 
and looked through. 

And then between him and the candle a shadow 
passed. It was a graceful shadow—Phyllida, coming 
toward him, letting down her hair. Her head was 
slightly bent and her elbows extended. She was in her 
nightdress, a silken thing with lace about the neck and 
no sleeves. Through the sheerness of its texture he 
could see the outlines of her body dimly traced in 
the candle light. There were hairpins in her mouth. 
“Why do you-” she began. 

She was only a step from him. He reached out 
his arm and drew her to him and the candle sent flicker¬ 
ing circles of shadow across the ceiling. “Phil, sweet¬ 
heart,” he began. But she pushed him from her. 
He could feel her knuckles, hard and cold against 
his brc3.st 

“Get back to bed. Job. You’ll take cold.” The 
hairpins made her voice seem muffled. 

Slowly he turned and went back. She stood in the 
doorway, still letting down her hair. 

“I came to see if you wanted one of your windows 
closed.” 

“Huh!” he exclaimed. “Closed?” He was sud¬ 
denly irritated. “If anything I’d like to knock out 
this whole damn wall.” 

“Well,” she said. “All right. It’s nothing to 
waste any feeling over. Good-night, Job.” 

She disappeared from the doorway and directly 
the candle went out. 



CHAPTER XXII 


T he next day Brawn was self-conscious at 
breakfast; Phyllida on the other hand behaved 
with her usual composure. “Lots to do,” she 
said. “Got to go to the village this morning. Shall 
I bring you some magazines, Job?” He began to feel 
that perhaps he was a bit ignorant in some of the 
essentials of marital relationship. 

“Better lay in a store of stuff in case it turns cold 
and you cannot make the trip,” he cautioned. He 
looked casually out of the window as he spoke. It 
embarrassed him to look her squarely in the eyes. 
“How was it you got a house so far out?” 

She was pushing her chair back. “Rent, Job. 
Rent. Thirty dollars was all I allowed us in our 
budget for rent. I’ve got enough canned stuff to last 
us a year. Only thing that worries me is: Is this 
near-stove going to keep us warm enough? I’ve a 
great pile of wood under the shed just outside the 
kitchen, but can we bank our fires enough to last all 
night?” 

Brawn got up and went over to the drum. He had 
a vague notion that keeping a fire was a matter of 
draughts. On the peak of the lid was a small cast- 
iron ornament. He took hold of this and began to 
twirl it thoughtfully with the air which a professional 
man always employs with a bit of homely machinery 

242 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 243 

that he is supposed to know all about. “Where do 
you take the ashes out?’’ he asked. 

Phyllida went into her bedroom. In a few minutes 
she returned' wearing her hat and cape with a leather 
bag over her arm. “Might drop a piece of wood in 
every half hour, Job. I’ll be back before so very 
long. Maybe I can find you a little nog.” 

He brightened and looked into her eyes. “Fine. 
I’m pretty well fed up with milk. And Phil, I 
wonder if the Denver paper doesn’t come out here? 
Maybe you could subscribe for a month or two. It’s 
a good thing not to lose touch with the world.” 

“Yes. But who’d bring it out every day?” 

“Yes. That’s so.” 

She was gone. He walked over to the stove, lifted 
the lid and peered in. The fire was burning quite 
satisfactorily. He walked to the kitchen door and 
peered through. The breakfast dishes were all piled 
on a small oilcloth-covered table. Through the next 
door out on the enclosed porch which served as pantry, 
he could see shelves of supplies. Phyllida had plan¬ 
ned her campaign. He turned about and went to 
her door. He paused there before it a moment and 
then pushed it open. Her bed was still disordered 
and there were a few clothes strewn upon a chair. 
Her wardrobe trunk stood partly open and the edge 
of a dress stuck out. It was green silk, pale sea-foam 
green. In that dark and meagre little room it seemed 
like a suppressed note of character. “Well, here I 
am,” it seemed to say. “And why not? Perhaps 
you thought I was something else.” Rather abashed, 
he backed away, closed the door and walked out upon 
the porch. 


244 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

He sat down and tried to pull the covers about him 
although it was bright and sunshiny and warm. His 
eyes idly wandered over the landscape. Before him 
was a bit of enclosure with a barbed wire fence about 
it. Probably a garden once, fenced in against the 
stock. The meadow dipped over a knoll and rolled 
away to the pine grove. Far off, at the edge of this 
thick cluster of trees he could see the posts of a fence. 
Over to the right was the gate to the main road, 
though he could not see the latter from where he sat. 
He tried to picture Phyllida on her way to town. He 
had passed along that road only two days before but 
somehow the features of it had washed from his mind. 
He remembered that the way lay uphill from the 
village, and once they had crossed a bridge. And 
the sand had crunched under the wheels of the auto¬ 
mobile. A mile was pretty far. 

He sighed. And then he closed his eyes and tried 
to sleep. But there was a patch of sunlight on his 
knee and directly it began to get intolerably hot. He 
shifted his leg as well as he could in the swaddle of 
blanket. And then his head began to itch. He had 
to disengage his arm and thrust it upward through 
the folds before he could enjoy a long luxurious 
scratch. And then his cover would not go back just 
right and his shoulder began to get cold. He specu¬ 
lated on some shoulder straps which one might adjust 
from within without exposing oneself. He decided 
that being alone was not the thing for a sick man. He 
wondered what time it was. He looked at the 
shadows on the ground and then he craned his neck 
in an effort to see how high the sun was. Phyllida 
was probably not even in the village yet. Then he 


245 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

kicked off his blanket and got up and went indoors. 
He walked over to the bookcase and stood before it. 
It was a dismal prospect for a solitary winter in a 
mountain cabin. There was a book on prenatal cul¬ 
ture. There were many books on children and how 
to raise them. There was a volume entitled “The 
Man Paul.” There was another volume on the prog¬ 
ress the Baptist Church was making in Abyssinia. 
There was a lurid-looking text with the caption “Seven 
Months in Hell.’’ By contrast this was irresistible 
and Brawn pulled the book down. It proved to be a 
dreary autobiography of a simple soul come to death 
grips with the demon rum, and the former’s drab and 
awful victory. Brawn put it back in great depression. 
There was a college algebra, a book on correct Eng¬ 
lish usage, Sallust in the original* and so on. The 
only interesting thing about the collection was, as is 
the case with some social gatherings, the speculation 
how such an assortment could possibly have been got 
together. At last, on the bottom shelf Brawn found 
a bound volume of fashion magazines, ten years old 
and in good repair. A story or two caught his eye 
as he quickly thumbed the pages and he drew up a 
dining-room chair, sat down, crossed his legs and 
began to read. 

He finished one story and then feverishly set out on 
the trail of the next. He was like a famine sufferer. 
It is reputed that such unfortunates frequently eat 
clay, old clothing, and even each other in a mere 
effort to counteract the inward pressure against their 
bellies. He must have sat for a long time, for he was 
startled after a while by the sound of feet on the 
porch and then the door opened and Phyllida came 


246 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

in. Her face was flushed and she was breathing 
heavily. In her right hand she carried a large cylin¬ 
drical object by a wire loop. 

He sprang up. “What have you there, Phil?” 

“Whew,” she said, letting it down upon the carpet. 
“The foolish thing is not so heavy, but like the Irish¬ 
man’s goat it’s not built to carry. It’s a coal-oil 
stove.” 

Brawn tucked his book under his arm and walked 
over and poked it with his toe. And then he looked 
at her. She was fishing packages out of her leather 
bag and her hair had come loose and was twisting 
about her neck and shoulders. 

“Don’t you think,” suggested Brawn, “that we’re 
spending a bit too much money on the house?” 

She emptied the bag and went into her room to hang 
it on its customary nail. When she returned she was 
smiling, but still breathing a little hard. “And what 
have you been doing? Find the porch too cold?” 

“Oh, reading a little,” said Brawn. 

She stepped over to the drum and lifted the lid. 
And then she looked at Brawn. “You’ve let the fire 
go out. It’s the devil to start. . . .” 

Two days later the cold snap came. That was 
what they called it in the village. “Snap” was a 
trivial name for anything so devastating. First there 
was a high wind just an hour or so before sundown, 
with piling clouds. Then it began to snow. There 
was a great, empty howling above the house and every 
now and then a thin whistle and zip. In a little while 
there came a powdery drift under the front door, 
upon the straw mat. Phyllida got some old rags and 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 247 

stuffed them along the sill. Then she brought in a 
double armful of wood and stacked it behind the 
stove. Her eyebrows, as she came through the 
kitchen, were crusted with snow and little beads of 
moisture glistened on her lashes. “Wish the kind 
soul who built this house had put the wood-shed under 
the same roof.” 

Supper was quickly over. They pulled their chairs 
up close to the drum which was roaring away in great 
style. Indeed, it threatened to set fire to the burlap 
that covered the wall behind it. But somehow the 
room grew chill in spite of the fire and after a while 
Phyllida got up and went out and when she returned 
she had a long knit scarf about her shoulders. Brawn 
opened his fashion magazine and tried to read, but he 
kept hearing the drum-drum of the wind, rushing in 
an endless procession past the house. Then there 
would come a comparative lull and then the sharp 
rattle of sleet against the weatherboarding. And the 
fire roared hollowly, disconsolately up the chimney. 

Phyllida went into the kitchen and got out the 
coal-oil stove, set it on the floor near her door and 
stood back, regarding it. “Stove’s all right. But we 
haven’t any oil—at least hardly any.” She laughed 
ruefully. 

They went to bed. The air in Brawn’s room was 
bleak. He kept on his socks and his bathrobe and 
crawled shivering in between the blankets, scorning 
for once the softness of the sheets. He drew his 
knees up under his chin. The wind came whistling in 
the room and he could feel the wet sting of the snow 
even where he lay, ten feet from the window. His 
nose was icy and wet and his eyes smarted even through 


248 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

the closed lids. Was a lunger, he thought, supposed 
to keep his windows open in such weather as this? 
After about ten minutes of it he decided to compro¬ 
mise; he crawled out of bed and pulled down the win¬ 
dow with the western exposure. At once the fine driven 
sleet ceased. The other window seemed to be un¬ 
offending in that respect. He crept back into bed 
shivering and chilled to the marrow. He wiped the 
moisture from his eyes, caught hold of his ankles and 
drew his knees up under his chin, and after a while 
he began to get warmer. He wondered about Phyl- 
lida. 

He slept. 

When he awoke he was stiff and very sore. Grad¬ 
ually he stretched out his legs and could not conceive 
how the blankets had got so cold. The muscles in 
his legs ached. He tried to stretch them, tried to re¬ 
lax, but the relief thus secured could not compensate 
for the chill. For a short while he moved restlessly 
about, trying to keep warm, trying to restore circula¬ 
tion, and then he gave it up. He sprang out of bed 
and ran across the room to the door. He noticed 
that there was a feathery edge of snow on the floor 
beneath his window. He flung open the door to the 
living room, eager for the fire. 

On the floor in front of the drum, Phyllida was 
kneeling. She had a scarf about her head and she 
wore her heavy tan cloak. She had her head down 
nearly parallel with the floor and was peering into 
the drum via the ash trap. As he opened the door, 
she looked slantwise up at him and grinned. “Look¬ 
ing for the fire, Job. Here! You get down here 
and blow. No never mind. Of course you can’t.” 


JOHN-NO~BRAWN 249 

Brawn felt a sinking feeling. The room was like 
a vault. ®‘Is it out?” he asked, hollowly. 

She bent to her task. “No. One stick is burning, 
I think.” She was blowing again, so that her neck 
was purple. Her right ear was against the floor, 
one leg stretched out across the matting; one foot free 
of her cloak. She was wearing a pair of tan oxfords. 
“Wish I had thought to bring in a pile of pine needles.” 

Brawn spied the coal-oil stove. He stepped over 
her and approached it. “How about this thing?” 
He began to shiver. The air was sharp about his 
legs even through his wool socks. 

“Might empty the lamp and pour some in,” sug¬ 
gested Phyllida, without altering her position. 

He got the lamp and carried it to the stove. Then 
he was at a momentary loss as to how to open the 
reservoir of the latter. After barking his knuckles, 
he found that the whole top bent over and was meant 
to lay on one side. He accomplished this with some 
misgivings. He unscrewed the top with numb fingers 
and then lifted the lamp and began to pour from one 
vessel to the other. His hand trembled a little and 
the oil splashed over. It was a strain on him, stretch¬ 
ing over to see if he was pouring straight. But finally 
it was accomplished. With a sigh he saw the lamp 
reservoir empty itself in a greasy trickle. He straight¬ 
ened up. And just then Phyllida, too, sighed and 
straightened. Her foot moved across the matting 
in a rapid arc. It intersected in its passage the line 
that the stove cylinder made along the floor. And 
it turned it over. Brawn sprang forward with a 
shout. But in her efforts to avoid trouble that she 
could not see, and with another spasmodic movement, 


250 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

she kicked the cylinder further. It rolled. And a 
greasy stain appeared in its wake and spread across 
the matting. 

Brawn rescued it and set it upon its feet. “You’ve 
wasted all the coal-oil,” he said reproachfully. 

She looked at him, face purple, eyes bulging. “Why 
don’t you look where you fill your old stove? This 
one’s burning anyway.” 

They made no further reference to the misfortune, 
being too engrossed in the prospect of warmth. They 
dragged up their chairs and sat huddled against the 
sheet iron of the sides. 

After a while Brawn looked at the disgraced 
cylinder. And then he looked at the dark patch on 
the floor. “Reckon there’s enough in it to light?” 

For a moment Phyllida was silent. “Hope so,” 
she said. “We need some for the lamp. If there 
isn’t we’ll have to go to bed before it gets dark.” 

Brawn looked at her in amazement. “Do you mean 
to say there’s no more coal-oil in the house?” 

“Right,” replied Phyllida, a little too gaily for his 
outraged feelings. “We might try melting some but- • 
ter.” 

Somehow, as he went to bed that night, he felt any¬ 
thing but a newly married man. He thought for a 
fleeting moment on the hospital and the tremendous 
steam radiator in his room. He heard Phyllida 
stoking the fire; she had said she would sit up for a 
while and keep it going. She had been keeping it go¬ 
ing all day long. That was about all she had done. 
He had lost count of the number of times she had 
gone out to the shed for wood. And yet the room 
had been flat and lukewarm. And he had had to put 


251 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

on his overcoat over his bathrobe and Phyllida had 
laughed at him. She had not looked too conventional 
herself, with her ears all bundled up and her long 
yarn mittens and her eyes watery, too. Women go off 
into shrieks of laughter over nothing. It was, he 
supposed, because of the strain on their nerves— 
weaker on the whole than those of men. 

Another night of acute discomfort: one’s legs 
seemed to be distressingly de trop. If only he could 
have cut them off and folded them alongside his body 
for warmth! All night long the wind went rushing 
past. He wondered where all the wind could possibly 
have come from. Every now and then there would 
be the sharp spatter of sleet flattening against the wall 
of the house. 

Another awakening, as cold, as bleak, as dreary as 
the former. The light was gray in the square of the 
window and the wind had abated not one whit. Pain¬ 
fully he struggled to his feet and closed his one open 
window. Then he opened the door to the living room 
and walked in. 

Phyllida was sitting in an arm chair before the drum. 
Her head leaned back across the head rest; her scarf 
trailed across the floor. Her lips were slightly parted 
and at the sound of his door she slowly opened her 
eyes and looked at him, heavy lidded. Then she 
stooped over and picked up a stick of wood and pushed 
it through the door. She yawned. “Rough night,” 
she said wearily. 

His conscience smote him. “You haven’t—you 
haven’t been sitting there all night?” 

Slowly she arose to her feet. “Why not?” she 
said. “ ’S warmer than the bedroom.” 


252 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

Brawn walked over to the window in impatience. 
He plucked aside the curtain and gazed out. The 
wind was streaking visibly across the meadow, lashing 
the pine tops with a brittle foam. “It won’t do, he 
protested. “Why, it isn’t right.” 

“What are you going to do about it?” inquired 
Phyllida from her chair, with a long, luxurious yawn. 
“The darn fire wouldn’t bank and some one just had 
to sit up with it.” 

“We can get some coal,” suggested Brawn. 

“Coal’s twenty-four dollars a ton. And how long 
do you suppose a ton would last in this?” 

Brawn walked away from the window and stood 
facing her. “We ought to go back to town—stop in 
some little hotel—anywhere—where there’s a fire.” 

“On ninety dollars a month?” She rose to her feet 
and stood smiling quizzically at him. “Come on, Job. 
Be a sport. This can’t last forever. Think how 
good it’ll be to tell about.” 

“But,” went on Brawn, “I’m afraid-” And 

then he checked himself. It was not just right to 
burden her with his worries. 

On the fourth day it began to moderate. At about 
eleven o’clock the sun came out and the clouds faded 
from the sky. The glare was dazzling but the warmth 
in the doorway was very grateful and the snow began 
at once to melt. It had piled up against the western 
side of the house in drifts four feet high, so that they 
half obscured Brawn’s window. 

At breakfast he noticed that Phyllida had begun to 
sniffle. Her eyes were red rimmed and every now and 
then she sneezed. But she went about her work, clatter¬ 
ing the pans in the kitchen. The fashion magazine had 



253 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

yielded its entire fruit, chaff and all, and Brawn was 
now in his fourth week with the evangelist in Hell. 

In the midst of a dreary passage reeking with alco¬ 
holic fumes, he was aware of Phyllida’s step in the 
room. He looked up. She was going into her bed¬ 
room. He returned to his reading but after a little 
he realized that she was staying there quite a while. 
Everything was still. 

He laid the book down. He walked over to her 
door and looked in. She was lying on her back upon 
the bed in all her clothes. As he appeared in the door¬ 
way he could see the gleam of her eyes beneath her 
lashes. Her face looked flushed. She spoke to him: 

“Job, I wonder if you wouldn’t go to the shed and 
bring in some more wood? I’m afraid the fire will 
go out and you know what a mess it is to start again.” 

He was startled. He wanted to go. But then a 
detaining hand laid hold of his consciousness. “Go 
slow,” something seemed to say. “Go slow.” 

He hesitated. “But, Phil.” He faltered. “I 
don’t know—I hardly think—the doctor said for me 
not to-” 

She sprang up. “Surely. I was only kidding. Of 
course you mustn’t.” 

She went past him. He seized her by the elbow. 
His voice showed his concern. “You’re not well, 
Phil. You’re feeling bad, aren’t you? Gee! I don’t 
know—I wish-” 

She pushed him aside. “I’m all right. Just lazy, 
that’s all. I was dreaming I was in a suite in the 
Brown Palace.” Her voice was hoarse and dry. 

He frowned, was at once troubled. Suppose she 
should get sick- 






CHAPTER XXIII 


T hree weeks later they met Mr. PIggott. 

Phyllida was trudging along from the village. 
She had reached the top of the long hill and the 
last turn where the dwarf pine stood precariously on 
the very edge of the road, when she encountered a 
drift of snow. It was deep—above her knees—and 
while her riding trousers and high-laced boots impeded 
her but little, th^ going claimed her entire attention. 
It was not until she had scrambled out on the hard 
bank that she realized a man was looking at her. 

He was a small man. • At least he was slight, though 
of about normal height. And he looked as cold as a 
detached icicle. He was leading a cow by a piece of 
clothes line. His coat hung open and he wore a pale 
blue cotton shirt, buttoned at the neck but with no tie. 
And his hands were bare—quite bare. He had the 
mildest eyes and his face was pink and white and 
smooth like a baby’s. Almost—from the expression 
of his face—she had caught him dreaming in the snow. 

As she looked up he smiled. It was a sweet, rather 
lugubrious smile. The eyes were languid. “Think 
I’d better tear a hole in the fence,” he said, “and lead 
the cow around.” 

She stamped the snow from her boots and looked 
at him, warming. “Isn’t it a mountain cow?” 


254 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 255 

He laughed. As he laughed he threw back his 
head, showing the point of a bony adam’s apple. His 
laughter was not hearty; rather it was as though con¬ 
vention demanded that he be cheery and sociable. “I 
know what you mean,” he replied. “I ought to put 
snow shoes on her.” 

Phyllida started. She had run upon a character. 
“Do you feed her an anti-freeze mixture?” 

He looked a bit puzzled at that and then smiled 
slowly. “No,” he said. “It ain’t that kind of a cow.” 
And then: “You live in the little brown cottage, don’t 
you?” 

They were standing a yard or so apart, between 
them a puddle of clear snow water; she with her 
bundles; he with his cow. Yes, she admitted she lived 
there. 

“Had some pretty rought weather,” he essayed, his 
eyes never leaving her face. 

“I have been warmer,” replied Phyllida. 

He seemed to be at a loss. Apparently he was con¬ 
sidering whether he would go on or whether courtesy 
demanded that she make the first move. He was in¬ 
fluenced by such considerations. Then: “Got every¬ 
thing you need—there in the house?” 

Phyllida was enjoying him, his voice, his mild blue 
eyes, his unruffled manner. “Why, no,” she said. 
“Could you bring me a tree?” 

“A tree?” 

“Yes. A tree. A Christmas tree—a sticky little 
spruce.” 

He smiled, showing a row of very. white teeth. 
“All right,” he agreed. “When do you want It?” 

“Oh, not now—not till nexr week. Christmas eve 


256 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

will do. I—ril pay you for it,” she hastened to add, 
and then as a shadow passed across his face: “And 
you might drop in for the party—some candy and 
things. You live around here, don’t you ?” 

“Thanks,” he replied. “I’d like to. Yes, I live 
around the hill.” 

“All right. That’s fine. We’ll expect you—with 
the tree. On Christmas eve, remember. That’s next 
Thursday.” 

She left him standing by the road, holding the rope, 
and thereby the cow. A few minutes later she looked 
back and saw him standing, still by the puddle, watch¬ 
ing her. . . 

On Thursday afternoon Mr. Piggott brought the 
tree while she and Brawn were still at the table. For 
a moment it did not seem possible that it was just a 
Christmas tree. “But it’s too big,” she greeted him 
from the door. “It won’t come in the house—through 
here.” 

He looked up. “We can pull some of the branches 
off,” he suggested, looking back at it. He had dragged 
it through the snow, the path was quite distinct back as 
far as the gate, and there was no telling- how much 
farther. 

She relented, he looked so frail beside his burden. 
“All right. But shake it off on the porch here.” 

True enough, it was too large. Mr. Piggott had 
to prune off branches with his knife, a murderous- 
looking thing with a stag-foot handle. Then he went 
for a soap box, with which he returned a few minutes 
later. The box had a hole cut in the top. He had 
thought of that. Phyllida had misgivings; Mr. Pig¬ 
gott looked too fine-drawn for heavy draught work. 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 257 

But he surprised her. The tree was lifted; the stump 
was fitted in the box stand. And the top brushed the 
ceiling and bent over—too high by over a foot. 

“That won’t matter,” said Phyllida. “Brush the 
cobwebs off.” 

“Aren’t any spiders,” replied Mr. Piggott. “Not 
this time o’ year.” 

Then they discovered that the tree took up too 
much room. There was no way to get out into the 
kitchen. It threatened to block any entrance it was 
placed near. And it was quite ragged on one side 
where Mr. Piggott had stripped it of branches. It 
was not a domestic-appearing tree; in truth it had 
quite a primeval air. So they decided on the corner 
by the bookcase. “Better get what books you want 
out first. Job,” she suggested. “It’s going to take 
root there.” 

Brawn came out from his sheltering bedroom as the 
tree swayed up into its corner. 

“This is my husband, Mr. Brawn,” she said to Mr. 
Piggott. “But I’m afraid you have the advantage of 
me.” 

He disclosed his identity. “Two T’s,” he explained. 
“And two G’s.” 

“Job,” said Phil, “there’s some candy in on my 
dresser. And I’ve left a pitcher of something wet in 
the kitchen. Suppose you and Mr. Piggott keep the 
house while I go to the village for the mail. I’ll not 
be gone long and maybe he can help you trim the tree. 
There’s candles and some paper chains.” She went 
into her room and returned with her purse. “How 
much do I owe you, Mr. Piggott?” 

The latter, sitting in a straight chair by the dining- 


258 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

room table, raised a protesting hand. “Not a thing, 
ma’am. Not a thing.” 

“But—I can’t let you drag that huge thing all that 
distance for me for nothing. Why, there’s a cord of 
wood in it.” 

“ ’Tis rather large. But I couldn’t take nothin’ for 
what I’ve done.” 

“All right,” she gave in. “But you must stay and 
have some supper with us. I’ll not be gone long.” 

He murmured something unintelligible. As she 
passed through the door his eyes followed her, withal 
a bit regretfully. 

She came in the back way when she returned from 
the village three hours later, and as she opened the 
door from the kitchen she must have surprised them. 
For they started—each of them. They were sitting 
in opposite corners and her first impression had been 
that they seemed not quite cheerful enough. She came 
and laid her packages on the table. “I’ve some pop¬ 
corn here. Maybe after supper we can pop some over 
the coals. You’ll stay, Mr. Piggott?” 

The latter started from a reverie. “Oh, no’m. 
Not—a—a—to-night.” He flushed slightly and then 
looked at her with a mild melancholy. “No’m. Not 
to-night.” And then he caught a sidelong look at 
Brawn. 

“Oh, but we’ll be disappointed. We had quite 
counted on you.” 

Brawn sat and gloomily gazed at the fire. 

“I really must be gettin’ on,” explained Mr. Pig¬ 
gott. He pulled out a small silver watch from the 
side pocket of his coat. It looked like a woman’s 
watch. “I ought to be goin’ now.” He rose to his 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 259 

feet but made no other effort at departure. “I was 
tellin’ your husband, ma’am, that he oughta get out in 
the hills, tramp around more. There was a feller 
came up here four years ago—like your husband”— 
glancing quickly at Brawn—“and he cut himself a long 
stick and he tramped all over this country—clear 
back to Ward’s I used to see him. Stayed out here 
two years and then he went back east again. Never 
heard of him since, but he musta got all right. He 
never came back.” 

Brawn glanced significantly at Phyllida. 

“Yes? That’s interesting.” 

“I told a—your husband, he’d never do no good 
just sittin’ around the house. Blood gets cold and 
congeals for want o’ exercise.” His eyes never left 
her face with their searching look. 

Phyllida smiled. “I think they have different ideas 
now from what they used to have.” Turning to 
Brawn: “You haven’t trimmed the tree.” 

“No. We haven’t got round to it.” Brawn’s voice 
was sombre. 

Mr. Piggott looked from Phyllida to Brawn. 
“Well,” he said, “I must be moseyin’. Thank you, 
ma’am, for your kind offer.” He stood in the door¬ 
way, twirling his hat, reluctant still. 

“I’m sorry you must go,” said Phyllida. 

“Yes,” he agreed. “And—in case you need me 
for anything,” he went on in a hurried manner, “why, 
just call on me. Good evenin’.” 

“Thank you, Mr. Piggott.” 

He pulled the door sharply after him. 

Phyllida got the cloth and was spreading it upon 
the table. 


26 o 


JOHN-NO~BRAWN 

Directly Brawn spoke: “Anything in the mail?” 

She did not look up. “Nothing much. A letter 
from Mama.” 

Silence. 

Then from her: “Did you have a pleasant time this 
afternoon?” 

“God!” Brawn exploded. “He’s been on the fire 
department. Little town east of here. Told me all 
about the patron saint of their local fires—an old 
rascal with a wooden leg and the smallpox. Had to 
build him a little ladder so he could climb up on the 
truck. In a moment of weakness I told him I was 
in poor health. Never again! He gave me the his¬ 
tory of every unfortunate that ever came into this 
country. It’s a burying ground, not a summer resort 
—to hear him. Pah!” 

She was bringing in a small stack of plates, which 
she distributed in their proper places on the table. 
“I thought he would be rather amusing,” she protested 
quietly. 

“At an undertaker’s banquet, yes. What’s in the 
letter?” 

“Oh, nothing. Nothing much. She asks about you.” 

Brawn was silent. Yes, she would do that. Any¬ 
body would do that. He was a curiosity; gone to 
Colorado for his health. Pretty bitter blow for Mrs. 
Coleman, he shouldn’t wonder. 

“She suggested coming out here,” Phyllida resumed 
very quietly. 

Brawn gave a start. “Well—I don’t see how she 
could do that just.” 

“Oh, no,” said Phil. “She couldn’t, of course. She 
was just wondering-” 



CHAPTER XXIV 


F or two weeks the Christmas tree stood in the 
corner, a mangy outcast. Then Phyllida had 
Mr. Piggott drag it out. He summarily 
dumped it on a snow bank a few yards from the front 
door where it stretched up disconsolate and bedraggled 
branches from its recumbent position like an aban¬ 
doned beggar. Then the sun came out for a week of 
unusual warmth and the snow melted throughout the 
meadow, all excepting a little patch under the tree, 
and the chipmunks came and nibbled at the withering 
needles and some wiry little wrens swayed for momen¬ 
tary breathings on its dry twigs. 

Winter had apparently signed an armistice. The 
sun shone brightly, the wind that had worn a groove 
down the canon from the divide to the southwest was 
busying itself in other quarters. The ground was dry¬ 
ing as in midsummer. And Brawn had moved his 
chair out to the freedom of the porch again. 

One day—it was the second of the warm spell— 
he arose in the morning and dressed. The novelty of 
his civilian clothes had not worn off and he was pleased 
with the texture of the suit. Phyllida looked up at 
him with mild surprise as he came in the kitchen. 
“Better be careful. Job, and not let any grease spatter 
on you.” 

“Pretty good fit, eh Phil?” he commented, smooth- 

261 


262 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

ing the lapel of his coat. He had always been a bit 
vain, a bit extravagant with his suits. “Think I fill 
it out better.” 

After breakfast he ventured out on the grass plot 
in front of the house. The road looked dry and 
inviting, so he started slowly up the slight grade 
toward the gate. It was delightful with the warm sun 
on his neck. There was not a cloud in the sky and 
the pines against the brown of the near hillside looked 
fresh and dark and blue. 

He was not weak, not at all, though it should not 
have been surprising after his long confinement if he 
wxre; so he continued to stroll along the road, deep 
rutted and lined with matted grass and moss, until 
he reached the gate. He leaned his elbows upon the 
top rail and gazed up the highroad. Solitary, it wan¬ 
dered across the meadow between twin lines of wire 
fencing, dipped into a gully, climbed a hill all brown 
and splotchy with sage, and then stretched off in the 
distance, vanishing into the indeterminate mix of earth 
and sky on the horizon. What it was doing there, in 
the utter solitude, was inexplicable. Far off, in the 
centre of the meadow, rose a great pile of rocks, on 
their crest a single, naked pine tree like a flag pole. 
But in all that valley, as Brawn stood leaning upon 
the gate, not a single living thing disclosed itself. The 
sunlight flooded down from a cloudless sky, the trees 
were motionless as though painted on canvas, the sage 
like little daubs of a brush. 

After a little while he turned around and retraced 
his steps. He entered the house by the kitchen door. 
On the back porch he found Phyllida bent over a small 
washtub, her hair loose and in great disorder, her 


JOHN-NO~BRAWN 263 

arms bare almost to her shoulders. The sight of her 
gave him an awkward pang; he had felt all mellow in 
the sun. He came and stood beside her. “Phil, old 
girl,” he said solemnly, “it hurts me to see you doing 
this.” 

She tossed her head to shake an offending wisp 
of hair out of her eyes and then bent back again. He 
could see the perspiration in beads upon her temple. 
“Shouldn’t be so proud. Job. Nobody knows about 
it.” 

She was not responding to the weather, it was ap¬ 
parent. By the door was a kitchen chair. He sat 
down and watched her. She was sousing the linen in 
a tub of clear water to rinse it, wringing out each piece 
and piling it then upon an upturned washboard. It 
pleased him to talk. 

“I’ve been a curious mate, eh Phil?” 

She paused a moment, her hands still in the water. 
Then she gave a towel a vigorous twisting flip and 
slapped it down upon the finished pile. “You surely 
have,” she agreed. “But, for that matter, all men 
are curious critters—hard crust like a June-bug; soft 
like butter within.” 

“Aw, Phil.” 

He tipped his chair back and sat balancing on the 
hind legs. 

“Be careful. Don’t turn my boiler over. You 
haven’t any business sitting out here in your good 
clothes.” 

Slowly his mellow complacency began to fade. The 
slosh of the water in the tub was monotonous. It 
challenged his nerves. A sudden realization of his 
uselessness welled into his mind. “Phil!” he insisted. 


264 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

She did not deign to look up. 

“Don’t you think that I’d better go back?’’ There 
was a rising inflection of doubt, cajoling her into 
speech. 

“Back where?” 

“Back to the hospital.” 

She gave him one scornful look and then plunged her 
arms into the tub again. 

“I’m not doing any good here,” he ventured after a 
while. 

Apparently she did not hear him. 

“How did you happen to marry me anyway, Phil?” 

With vigorous decision she picked up the tub. 
carried it to the door and poured the water out upon 
the ground. It made a rich, sloshing sound. Then 
she carried the tub back to its stand on a soap box and 
began filling it again from a water bucket. “What 
have you been reading lately. Job?” 

“Nothing—But you haven’t answered my question.” 

She paused and again regarded him—appraisingly. 
“Well,” she said, “maybe I was lonesome. I hadn’t 
thought about it. Then again it might have been 
your uniform. It cost you ninety dollars, didn’t it? 
I really don’t know. You’re not holding it against me, 
are you?” 

“Aw, Phil.” 

She began to souse the already rinsed skeins in the 
fresh water. 

“You’re not going to wash ’em all over again? 
I think you’re a bit rough in your fun sometimes.” 

“Don’t worry so much about yourself. Job. 
There might be something in you yet. You can’t 
tell.” 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 265 

He allowed the chair to settle foursquare with the 
floor and sat darkly viewing the wall whereon hung 
shelves and shelves of canned food. It was a cramped 
and shabby pantry. Behind him the stove simmered 
away not three feet from him. The kitchen was not 
much larger than the galley of a dining car. And it 
smelled sour. The little house with its five rooms— 
all tiny—seemed to press about them. Like squirrels 
in a cage on an open porch they were with the meadows 
wide and open, the limitless peaks and ranges beyond, 
and the road that wound across the skyline to Lord 
knows-where. 

“It’s just this,’’ he broke out bitterly, “you could 
make out better on the ninety dollars if I was out 
of the way. I could go to the hospital and get 
my board and lodging free. Ninety dollars is not 
so bad for one person. You could get along on 
that-’’ 

She laid down her washing, turned, and faced him 
in the doorway. There was a curious set look about her 
mouth and her eyes were dark and questioning. “Now, 
Job,” she began, “let’s have no more of that. If you 
felt that way you needn’t have got your discharge. 
One hundred and sixty is better than ninety, too, if you 
want to argue that way. That isn’t the point. 
Thank God we don’t have to consider money in every¬ 
thing.” She was rolling down her sleeves. Then 
she began to tuck in her hair. 

“Aren’t you going to finish?” said Brawn. 

“No,” she replied rather shortly. “I’ve enough.” 

“Why, Phil!” It shocked him to see that her lips 
were trembling. There were actual tears—dry little 
beginnings of them—welling into her eyes. 



266 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

She turned from him, opened the back door and went 
out into the yard. 

He sprang up and followed her. 

Just outside the door, by the corner of the shed 
where was piled the rest of their fuel, she stood, drying 
her eyes with the corner of her apron. “It’s all 
right,” she said without looking at him. “I’m a silly 
fool.” 

He took her by the elbow. “Phil! Sit down. 
Here by me. Now, tell me!” 

She turned upon him a wry face, forehead wrinkled, 
eyes humid with trouble, a crooked smile on her lips. 
“No. It doesn’t matter—ever—money doesn’t. Not 
any more than your spinal column.” 

Brawn was still holding her elbow, looking into her 
face. A cold premonition came to him that perhaps 
she might take up his reckless offer. “Now, what’s 
wrong?” 

She shook her head vigorously. “Nothing.” 

“But there is.” He knew pretty well what it was. 

“No there isn’t. Nothing. Nothing you can help. 
Nothing I can help.” She paused. 

“Well?” 

“It’s nothing, I tell you. Mama just said maybe 
she’d have to come out, that’s all. She not getting 
what she expected—from Arthur.” 

Brawn was cold. “Why not?” 

“Oh, I don’t know. She’s vague about it. Maybe 
Arthur hasn’t got it. She didn’t say.” 

He got up and leaned against the corner of the 
shed. The old story was bobbing up again; now he 
would hear all about it. But there was trouble enough 
without this mangy old skeleton coming out of his 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 267 

closet and rattling his bones. It wasn’t that Arthur 
Coleman hadn’t the money. Oh, no, he knew better 
than that. It was just that Arthur wouldn’t let them 
“put anything over” on him. He was just sticking 
up his backbone and no one could say anything because 
most probably the “shoe fitted the other foot.” And 
now the old lady was casting out her hints to come to 
Colorado. Slim chance he would have to get well if 
she did. He smiled inwardly with bitterness. She 
would surely have to be hard up to come to a place 
like this for solace and shelter. 

He caught a look at Phyllida. She was inspecting 
the water pipe that came out under the house from 
the spring up the hill. A faint residue of suds was 
still adhering to her arm. Just a little grossness, 
maybe—one could and should overlook it. Blood 
was thicker than water; one could not forego heredity 

entirely- He was fiercely resentful of a sudden— 

sorry it should be so. 

Phyllida was standing by the doorpost, brushing off 
her hands. “Well, it’s time to eat again. Always 
time to eat. What do you want. Job? Coming in?” 

“Think I’ll stay out here a while longer,” said 
Brawn. 

She left him and he sat down on the steps and 
gazed off eastward across the meadow. Slowly a sor¬ 
did spell began to settle upon the world, bathed in its 
unwinking sunshine. Not a sound came to break the 
silence; trees, shrubs, and massive piles of rock stood 
watching—stolid—impervious to feeling. 

He ought to do something, he supposed. But 
what? There was nothing he could do; he was a 
“flat tire.” But he couldn’t sit and mope and let her 




268 JOHN-NO~BRAWN 

feel that it was getting under his skin. She didn’t 
know he knew- Perhaps if he went to the village 

He raised his head; he spoke to her through the 
screen that intervened: 

“I wonder—has Piggott got a machine, do you 
know, Phil?” 




CHAPTER XXV 


I N MAY came Lieutenant Scholtz. 

“I remember Mrs. Brawn,” he said with a stiff 
little bow as Brawn introduced him. 

‘‘And what can be bringing you to this part of the 
world?” asked Phyllida. 

Scholtz looked at her calmly and then around all 
about him, at the cottage and the landscape. “Seems 
to me like a pretty good place to be,” he decided. 

Phyllida laughed. “Oh, it’s all right to-day, but 
to-morrow there may be two feet of snow. I don’t 
know what they have done to spring—it’s either winter 
or summer here.” Brawn looked at her; she seemed 
to be fluttering. Her hair was in disorder and he 
noticed that she had been using some more of that 
tinted powder. 

“You’re still in, Scholtz? How does that happen?” 
he said. 

“Yes,” contributed Phyllida, tucking in a wisp of 
hair, “we saw you from the road. I was wondering 
what a uniform was doing out this way. Thought 
maybe it was some one after John. Won’t you come 
in?” They were all standing in a little cluster near 
the door. 

“I get out next month,” replied Scholtz. “No, 
thank you. Just sit here for a few minutes. Pretty 
view you have here.” His gaze would come back to 

269 


270 


JOHN-NO~BRAWN 

Phyllida though he addressed most of his remarks to 
Brawn. His smooth pink face was without a wrinkle; 
there was a ponderousness about the fall of his cheeks. 

“Won’t you stay to lunch, Mr. Scholtz?” put in 
Phyllida. 

“What’s the latest bicker?” asked Brawn. 

Scholtz looked from Phyllida to Brawn and then to 
Phyllida again. “Why, thanks, no,” he replied. “I 
must be getting back. I came with a party in a car 
and they’re going back at two.” They had taken 
chairs on the screened porch and Scholtz’s gaze wan¬ 
dered to the inescapable panorama of the range. 
“Pretty fine place to live. Been here ever since you 
left the hospital?” 

Brawn waited for Phyllida; Phyllida for Brawn. 

“Have you any letters from the new organization?” 

“No,” said Brawn. “Which one?” 

“We’ve been organizing to get a bill passed granting 
the emergency officers retirement on the same basis as 
they give it to the regular army. It’ll cost you five 
dollars a year.” 

“What’s the money for?” 

Scholtz’s mild blue eyes rested on Brawn in surprise. 
“Why, you can’t get a bill passed through Congress 
without money even if it’s a good one. It has been 
estimated it will cost about ten thousand dollars to get 
this bill passed. We are arranging to have a circular 
mailing system of about fifty thousand letters a week 
to Congress from all over the country. We have 
seventy-eight Congressmen pledged now. Better let 
me take your subscription in.” 

“But,” said Brawn. “I’m not sure I’m in favour of 
it. Especially getting in that way.” 


271 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

“Why not? We can’t get it any other. We did 
as much as the regular army officers. We should be 
treated the same way, seems to me.” He looked again 
at Phyllida. 

Brawn was feeling stubborn; Scholtz had never ap¬ 
pealed to him as a man of ideas. “Well,” he replied, 
“there is some difference. We have been used to other 
things. We can make a living in other ways. The 
regular army officer cannot. He’s spoiled for real 
work, he’s done so much gold-bricking all his life.” 

“How much do you think you can do now?” Scholtz 
suddenly turned on him. 

“Not much,” Brawn admitted. 

“Well, then. Your hundred and fifty-seven fifty 
does not go very far. And they can take it away from 
you any time they feel like doing it. You don’t get 
very far on that, do you?” 

Brawn looked at Phyllida. “That wouldn’t be so 
bad,” he admitted after a bit, “but I don’t get that 
much.” 

Scholtz’s round face showed mild surprise. “You 
don’t get your insurance? What’s the reason you 
don’t?” 

“Well,” said Brawn. “I have been examined. I 
don’t rate that much, I reckon. Haven’t enough ac¬ 
tivity.” 

Scholtz seemed aghast. He shook his head 
solemnly: 

“Now listen. To-night you write to your Congress¬ 
man. Tell him how bad you are off. And write to all 
your influential friends, especially those in politics and 
those with money, and get them to write to your Con¬ 
gressman. Tell them you cannot live on your compen- 


272 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 


sation—^you get total temporary, did you say?—and 
that you can’t work—the army doctors have told you 
you can’t work—and ask him to use his influence in 
getting your insurance awarded to you. And keep 
on bothering him until you hear from him.” Scholtz 
paused for breath and gazed fiercely and earnestly at 
Brawn. “Why, I got mine eight months ago.” 

Phyllida seemed interested. “Why don’t you. Job ?” 

“Because,” said Brawn, suddenly irritated, “I don’t 
believe in that sort of thing. I went in the war for 
something else, not for what I could get out of it. 
And I’m not going to ask Congress or anybody else to 
support me. I’ll not be made a beggar of.” 

“What you could get out of it?” Phyllida repeated 
eagerly. “Yes. Look what you got out of it. I’m 
with Lieutenant Scholtz. You’re entitled to as much 
as the most. The Government has no way of knowing. 
They’ll never give unless they’re made to.” 

“Now, Phil!” 

“I imagine I have some say in the matter. They’ve 
wrecked my apple cart as well as yours.” She paused 
and then looked confused. 

“Well,” retorted Brawn stubbornly, “it’s not accord¬ 
ing to my principles. And principles is about all I’ve 
got left.” 

For a moment all three sat in silence, gazing at the 
floor. More feeling had crept into the discussion than 
any one had intended should. 

“Come, Lieutenant Scholtz. Let me show you the 
house. You might decide to come up this way this 
summer and you can see what to expect. Coming, 
Job?” 

Scholtz rose and followed her into the house. 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 273 

Brawn remained sitting in his chair. For a little while 
he could hear their voices in casual conversation. And 
then the sound stopped. They had probably gone out 
the back door and Phyllida was in all likelihood show¬ 
ing him the pantry and the wood-shed and the barn. A 
sudden aversion to Scholtz and his kind arose in him 
and rankled. Self! Self! Self! Ninety per cent, of 
the world was interested solely in what it could get 
out of life, by any means that would be tolerated. The 
War Risk Insurance had established ratings for the 
various cases of disability, he knew. And while it had 
shown gross incompetence in meeting the issues fairly 
and squarely, still to go beyond itsavouredof lawbreak¬ 
ing, bribery. There was a bitterness in his virtue. 

In a few minutes Phyllida and Scholtz returned, and 
while they said nothing as they came upon the porch, 
he knew that they had been discussing him and his 
compensation. 

“Well,” said Scholtz, picking up his hat. “I’m glad 
I found you people at home.” 

Phyllida laughed sharply—she was certainly getting 
the flutters here lately. Brawn thought—“Fat chance of 
finding us anywhere else, Mr. Scholtz.” 

They walked with him to the gate. Far down the 
road rose the dust of an automobile which must have 
passed the house some minutes before. It was an un¬ 
usual sight. 

“Aren’t you afraid to walk that distance?” said 
Brawn. 

Scholtz drew himself up. “Little walks like that do 
us good every now and then. Do you good. Work 
up an appetite.” 

Brawn was on the point of retorting, of referring 


274 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

to Scholtz’s award of insurance, but he held his tongue. 

“Good-bye, Mrs. Brawn.” And then to Brawn: 
“Better do what I told you. Get your friends to write 
your Congressman. They can’t resist pressure like 
that.” 

They watched him go down the road. The sun 
was almost directly overhead and Brawn was thinking 
it might be a pretty hot walk for Scholtz in spite of his 
strength and his insurance award. 

Phyllida turned to him and looked him in the eyes. 
“Why didn’t you give him the five dollars?” 

He was at once tremendously angry—people forc¬ 
ing him like that. “It’s movements of that sort that 
have prostituted our American institutions,” he said. 
“We elect our representatives to make our laws—not 
to put them over by propaganda.” 

“You sound like a Fourth of July oration,” she 
laughed bitterly. “If they haven’t got sense enough to 
provide the proper laws to run the country, there surely 
isn’t any harm in clubbing together and telling them 
what to do—what they ought to know without being 
told. You know we could use more.” She started 
walking toward the house. 

He turned and followed her. “Just the same it 
savours of bribery—all this clubbing together of com¬ 
mon selfish interest and forcing it across with a slush 
fund. Besides,” he added, “I didn’t have the five.” 

She made no further reply and he followed her 
slowly. She was looking a bit thin, he thought, es¬ 
pecially in the neck; the tendons were thin and drawn. 
Her petticoat was showing. It had been a hard winter 
on both of them. 

Scholtz had not mentioned the hospital. That had 



JOHN-NO-BRAWN 275 

been unusual. But nevertheless it was the hospital that 
Brawn thought of all day. By degrees a depression 
settled upon him. What if some day he should have to 
go back? He had no money to go anywhere else. 
Phyllida as much as admitted that the strain of making 
both ends meet was very great. And on the first of 
June the rent would go up to fifty dollars a month. 
Just what would happen if they started running into 
debt? 

In the middle of the afternoon he walked out under 
the trees and sat down on a carpet of pine needles and 
let the sun beat down on his back. It was a lazy, soft 
sensation and the smell of the sap came clear and dis¬ 
tinct to his nostrils. Back in the kitchen Phyllida be¬ 
gan to sing, short little spasmodic bursts of song. 
Phyllida sang through her nose and her high notes 
were always a bit thin. But it had been a long time 
since he had heard her. Now there was sunlight 
—a warm breeze—sap starting—the sharp blue 
sky. 

He turned and lay face down upon the ground, with 
the needles pressing against his cheek. His heart 
ached from anxiety and why it should—at this parti¬ 
cular time—he could not explain to himself. Things 
were no worse than they had been and summer was at 
hand. It was Scholtz—Scholtz with the poisonous 
suggestions of disability, of hospital and doctors, of 
laws and ratings and restrictions. Scholtz had done it. 
He would have to go back, perhaps. The grim, gray 
gates would yawn for him once more. “Once you 
come back for a second time,” he had heard some one 
say, “you never leave.” 

That night he dreamed of the Louisville Country 


276 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

Club. He and Mrs. Crane were having a foot race 
across the lawn in front of the porch. And as he ran 
—Mrs. Crane held her skirts up above her knees and 
her fat legs were very .bowed—some one kept crossing 
in front of him, across his path. He reached out his 
hand. It proved to be Phyllida, all thin and pale and 
sour-faced and in a perfect rag bag of a dress. And 
he had to stop and remonstrate with her and she stood 
and stared at him with the oddest expression in her 
eyes while Mrs. Crane called to him from the pop-corn 
stand and wildly waved her handkerchief. 

Then one day a big red tourist automobile passed 
the house. There were only a few passengers and 
they were pretty well bundled up. As they passed they 
all looked in and a man pointed out the house to his 
wife and there was a great fluttering of veils and 
scarves and a little girl waved her handkerchief to 
Brawn, who sat still under his pine tree. And then 
he wished he were going with them. But he had no 
money. He wondered how long things could keep up 
this way. Could they last out the summer? He hoped 
that they would not have to give up before the summer 
was over. Perhaps he might get something to do in the 
village, now that the tourist season had begun. But 
no; he was not good for anything. They might as well 
take him back to the hospital. That was what the 
hospital was for—to keep ex-service men from dying 
on the street. And he would get a number again and 
his t. b. would get a rating. He would have just so 
much involvement on a chart. And the degree of his 
sickness would depend on how far down those little 
red lines extended on the picture. It was all Scholtz’s 
fault. If he had not come he would have forgotten all 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 277 

about such things. If only he could see some people 
from a real man’s world! People who were not think¬ 
ing about their health or pensions from the Govern¬ 
ment—useful, agreeable, happy people. It was the 
tourist auto, too, that was partly to blame. 

“Phil,” he said that day at noon, “when the season 
opens, I want you to go to the village more. Meet a 
few people. Sometimes they have dances at the hotels. 
You might as well be getting something out of living 
in a resort. I want you to.” 

She had not looked up when he began but gradually 
that odd, quizzical look which had been so character¬ 
istic of her came into her face. “What’s on your 
mind. Job? Thinking of starting up a local charity— 
tin cup, bell, and everything?” She was thoughtful 
a moment. “Might not be so bad at that. They tell 
me the favourite local sport is swatting the tourist.” 

He grinned. “No. I mean it. Winter’s over. 
It’s time you were having a spring thaw. I’ve been a 
—a pretty hard proposition. I mean it. I want you 
to have some fun.” 

“Thank you. Job,” she said gravely. And then 
with a twinkle: “I’m an obedient soul. I’ll go as far 
as you say. Better not get me started.” 

He breathed a sigh of relief. Somehow a tension 
seemed to have lightened. “Just saw a tourist car 
pass the house again this morning. Things make me 
restless.” 

That afternoon they sat on their porch with the 
sunlight streaming all about them. Up the canon to 
the southwest the mists were gathering and clouds 
were hovering about the sugar-loaf peak that stood at 
the end of the gorge. Phyllida had taken to her knit- 


278 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

ting again—to sitting with Brawn on the porch in the 
sunlight. After all, the place had prospects. 

A little ball of dust appeared down the road, fol¬ 
lowed by a tail like a comet. And then a small automo¬ 
bile came bumping around the curve. Brawn watched 
it approach, wondered where it might be bound for. 
And then it was stopping at the gate. A man got out, 
swung back the gate, jumped into the car again and 
drove slowly down the soft dirt driveway toward 
them. The man held out his arm from the shadow of 
the top, in greeting. Phyllida had dropped her knit¬ 
ting in her lap. “Who is it, do you suppose?” she 
said to Brawn. 

A voice called out, “Hi, there!” from the car and 
then Brawn rose slowly to his feet. 

“It’s—it’s Cloud. Jerry Cloud. What do you 
suppose-” 

The car came to the end of the driveway and the 
man jumped out and came toward them, grinning. 
“They told me it was the last house on the road,” he 
said. “They meant the last house in the world, didn’t 
they? Hello, Phil. How are you. Brawn?” 

They opened the screen door and went down the 
steps to meet him. Brawn felt an indescribable 
friendliness at the sight of his familiar face. Then all 

three began to speak at once: “Why, Jerry!”- 

“You don’t look sick. Brawn I”-“What are you do¬ 

ing out in this part of the world?” 

Then all three took seats on the porch and Cloud 
sank back in his chair and sighed deeply and smiled. 
“That damn flivver’s paralyzed me. Great view you 
have here.” 

Phyllida’s eyes were alight with excitement. “But 





JOHN-NO-BRAWN 279 

tell me, Jerry. Tell me right away what on earth are 
you doing in Colorado and with a flivver?” 

Cloud turned away from the range and grinned at 
her. He looked her over comprehensively—from 
head to foot. “That’s easy,” he explained. “Well, 
I had to get to work. So I came as far away from home 
as I could to avoid the stigma. You see, I don’t mind 
you people.” 

“What are you doing, Jerry?” 

He paused as if hesitating to tell them. And then 
he laughed. “I’m selling soap. Toilet soap. I’ve all 
this territory—Rocky Mountain district.” 

“But, Jerry, I didn’t know you were so well-informed 
on soap. I didn’t know you had it in you. Your light’s 
been under a bushel.” 

“And now it’s in a soap dish. You don’t look as 
if you were sick. Brawn. Somebody told me back home 
you were about to cash.” 

“Do I look it?” Brawn laughed shortly. 

“Jerry!” said Phyllida. “You’re staying to sup¬ 
per?” 

“Sure,” said Cloud. “Worse than that. All night if 
you’ve got the room. If you’ve got a big, soft cushion 
I’ll sit on it and you can put me anywhere. I can’t 
get back in that car to-night.” 

The afternoon passed quickly away. The sun sank 
toward the jagged saw-tooth horizon, shooting out its 
golden rays like arrows against the shadows that pur¬ 
sued it from the eastern ridge. In the southwest the 
mists and gathering clouds hung waiting in the valley, 
seemingly not yet determined on action, like scavengers 
lurking on the out-skirts of a deserted campfire. 


28 o 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

“You’d better come inside. It gets cold the minute 
the sun goes down,” said Phyllida, gathering up her 
knitting from her lap and going indoors. 

“But I thought you had gone across the border and 
enlisted in the Canadian army,’’ said Brawn. 

“Hell, no,’’ replied Cloud, rising to his feet. 
“Where’d you ever get that idea? I was in the motor 
transport. Camp Lewis. Can I help you, Phil? 
Lemme make you some biscuits. There’s class to my 
cooking.’’ 

Phyllida’s reply was unintelligible. 

“Huh,’’ called Cloud. And then he went indoors. 

Brawn sat and wondered. But already he was more 
cheerful. Jerry Cloud brought up a host of pleasant 
memories. “It’s what I need—above all else,’’ he 
thought. And just then the sun dipped and the air was 
cold and the mists and clouds to the southwest seemed 
to come a little nearer. 

He went indoors. 

It was very cheery that night sitting by lamplight 
about the little sheet-iron drum. It was the same drum 
that had so miserably fallen down in the cold snaps, 
but it roared confidently away so that they had to move 
back their chairs after a while. 

“I can’t get over your being here, Jerry. You of all 
people. I always thought you’d be bored to death be¬ 
fore you ever reached manhood and here you are doing 
the most obvious thing in a clean, pure world. Why 
didn’t you try matches, Jerry?’’ 

“Oh, it’s not so bad,’’ said Cloud. “You see, my 
uncle died and he didn’t have anything after all. I 
got this job back in Louisville and I’ve made a pretty 
good thing out of it. I’m not such a dumbbell after 


28 i 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

all, Phil. You’d be surprised how much I’m making 
out of it—soap. And I’m just getting in with the trade. 
If things break right, I’ll be opening up a Denver office 
and putting men out on the road.” He breathed 
deeply, his eyes fixed on some visionary prospect, and 
settled into his chair. 

Brawn had not been included much in the conversa¬ 
tion, which instinctively would lapse to personal levels. 
And it seemed a bit queer sitting up there and listening 
to Jerry Cloud’s prospects of profitably lathering the 
Rocky Mountain region and not feeling the least bit of 
irritation or jealousy. But Brawn had no knowledge 
of soap nor the psychology of salesmanship which 
Jerry flourished in his tales of recent triumphs. He 
had never considered the problem of enforcing his 
own personality though that was obviously the thing 
to do these days. On the contrary it seemed to him 
that Jerry had slumped in his transition from potential 
social bandit to petty salesman. He had lifted his 
leopard skin and showed himself to be bourgeois sheep. 
And the peculiar thing was that he obviously enjoyed 
the natural role. Brawn wondered that he had ever 
been jealous. 

At length the little clock tinkled out eleven and 
Phyllida got up. “Three blankets will be all you can 
have, Jerry,” she said. 

He followed her and stood in the doorway leaning 
upon the doorpost while she made his bed for him in 
the spare room. “What I need is a cushion,” he in¬ 
sisted. Like most alleged humourists he parted with 
a potent idea with the utmost reluctance. “By the 
way, Phil. In about two weeks I’ll be coming back 
this way from Wyoming. Think I’ll stop off for a 


282 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

week end. The hotels will be open then and we can 
throw a party, maybe.” 

“That’ll be fine,” said Phyllida. Then she came 
brushing past him, a pile of clean linen over her arm. 
“Come, Job. You’re next.” 

It amused Brawn, the fuss she was making. But he 
went lightheartedly to bed. For a short while he 
heard Phyllida and Cloud talking to each other through 
thin partitions—trifling inanities. But the sound was 
cheerful. He went to sleep with their voices echoing 
faintly in his ears. 

When he awoke, snow covered the ground. 

Jerry came into the living room, collarless and rub¬ 
bing his hands and breathing noisily through his nose. 
He looked scrawnier than Brawn had imagined he 
could look. But then his hair was dishevelled. It 
suddenly occurred to Brawn that that was what was 
the matter with him. 

They had a huddled breakfast of coffee and toast 
and at eight-thirty Cloud bundled himself into an over¬ 
coat. 

“I’ve some yarn mitts, Jerry,” said Brawn. “I’m not 
going to use them any more. They’ll be just the thing 
for driving.” He went into his room and rummaged 
about for them in his army locker. When he returned, 
Phyllida and Cloud were standing together in the front 
doorway. Cloud was talking in a low tone and at the 
same time he was fingering the tie which she had 
knotted in her middy blouse. 

“You’re welcome to these,” said Brawn, tossing the 
gloves on the table. 

Cloud looked once more at Phyllida, thoughtfully, 
and then turned to Brawn. “Good-bye,” he said, holT 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 283 

ing out his hand. “Glad to see you looking so well.” 
He picked up the gloves and turned to Phyllida. “I’ll 
drop you a card in a week or two. It’s a go—the 
party and the week-end?—I’m apt to be dropping in 
on you every now and then this summer.” 

“I wish you would,” they both said together. 

They watched his runabout back around and turn 
and then head for the gate. Then Cloud stuck out his 
hand in farewell and directly he was rolling out the 
gate on to the road. He did not stop, but left the gate 
standing open. The tracks of his auto were sharp and 
black in the thin feathery snow. 

“You can tell he was raised in the city,” laughed 
Brawn. 

“All the same I’m glad he came,” said Phyllida. 

“So am I,” replied Brawn. 


CHAPTER XXVI 


J ERRY CLOUD did not return in two weeks. 
And it was Brawn who expressed his disappoint¬ 
ment. “I don’t suppose he’ll show up,” he said. 
And then later: “Wish we were five or six hundred 
miles nearer the States. People might drop in on us 
then.” 

Near the end of June, Phyllida got the post card. 
“I’ll be with you over the Fourth. Get your hair 
braided. Business is fine.” And Brawn smiled as she 
read it to him: “Funny how much respect Jerry has for 
money now. When he had none of it he scorned it. 
Nothing like experience.” 

To which Phyllida made no reply. 

Early Friday afternoon of July the second the abbre¬ 
viated automobile came bumping around the curve 
from the sign-post pine tree and stopped before the 
swinging gate. And Jerry Cloud jumped out. Phyl¬ 
lida and Brawn watched him come slowly down the 
driveway. 

“I thought you had forgotten us,” said Phyllida. 
Cloud was smiling. He had donned a loud checked 
golf suit with heather golf stockings and his face was 
fiery red from the unadulterated sunlight. He had 
been driving about with his top down. He was smiling 
broadly as he sprang up the steps. 

284 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 


285 

“Not a chance,” he said. He put his arm about 
Phyllida’s shoulders and held out his hand to Brawn. 
He seemed pleased with some picture that lay before 
his mind. “Had a great month. This country is ripe 
for the picking. Why, you’d be surprised how they 
fall for my line. The week of June tenth—that was 
the week after I left here?”—looking at Brawn—“I 
sold—let me see: Four ninety-five and sixty eight-” 

“Come on in Jerry. I’ll get you pencil and paper,” 
interrupted Phyllida. 

“Yeah. Tell us where you’re going. Not where 
you’ve been,” added Brawn. There was gaiety in the 
tone of both. 

Cloud dismissed the rosy mental image and grinned. 
“All right. I was coming to that.” He sat down 
in a porch chair and crossed his legs, conscious of the 
curve of his stocking which he regarded reflectively. 
“There’s a dance at the Westmore to-night and you’re 
both going. Bunch of people came up from Denver to¬ 
day. Lots of them from the East. I’ll bet four bits 
loads passed me on the way up the canon.” 

“I didn’t think anything could pass that car of yours, 
Jerry,” laughed Phyllida. 

Brawn looked thoughtful and Phyllida went on: 
“I think that would be lovely. I’ve got an old frock 
from back in the dark ages and my slippers are very 
decrepit. But think of going to a dance again. Job.” 

“Huh?” Brawn started. “Yes,” he replied thought¬ 
fully. “It would be nice—but—I don’t know. I reck¬ 
on I’d better not. I’m afraid-” 

“What?” interrupted Cloud. “Why, you’re crazy. 
I’d not hurt you. Do you good. We’ll drive down 
in the flivver-” 





286 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

“That^s the point,” laughed Brawn shortly. “That 
bus of yours would jar loose all my fibrosis.” 

“What’s fibrosis? Well, if you’re particular we 
can get a service car—I can get one. And you can sit 
in the corner of the dance hall and watch your wife 
go get ’em.” 

The light was fading from Phyllida’s face. “No,” 
she said at length. “I guess we’d better not, Jerry. 
But it’s sweet of you to think of it. Job’s getting on so 
well I’d hate like everything to give him a set-back. 
Especially after all we’ve done to get him on his feet.” 

“Doesn’t look to me there’s anything the matter with 
him,” said Cloud. 

“You can’t tell by the looks. Cloud.” Brawn caught 
a quick glance at Phyllida. “There’s no reason,” he 
began slowly, “that you can’t go, Phil. Jerry’d just 
as soon take you without me.” 

“Rather. But—why, it’s not going to hurt you. 
Sit up in the corner. Nobody’s going to ask you to 
dance.” His words. Brawn felt, did not conscientious¬ 
ly express his desires. 

“No,” broke in Phyllida. “It’s settled. And now 
let’s enjoy ourselves. Jerry, what do you want us to 
do to entertain you? The week-end has begun.” 

They all stood up as if in obedience to her wishes 
and then no one knew what to suggest. 

“Let’s go down and look at the chickens,” said 
Brawn. 

“No. Jerry doesn’t care anything about chickens, 
do you, Jerry? At least, not any longer. And there 
isn’t but one chickens. Poor old lonesome thing. 
Let’s go down in the pine grove and watch the squirrels. 
What do you say, Jerry?” 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 287 

“Why, we could go for a hike—off the road yonder 
where that line of trees comes down.” He hesitated. 
“I wish—I wish old Brawn could walk a little.” 

Brawn stiffened. “Say,” he said brightly, “don’t 
you mind me. Go ahead with your hike—you and 
Phil. I don’t care anything about it. I’ve got a good 
book here I want to get to. You go ahead. It’s time 
Phil was seeing some of this country.” 

Phyllida laughed. “What’s the book. Job? The 
one on Parlour Etiquette? Come on, Jerry. We’ll 
all go down in the grove.” 

And so it was decided. And they slowly walked 
across the grass, cushions and blankets over arms, paus¬ 
ing every now and then to comment on a badger hole or 
a wild geranium bush, Jerry Cloud wrapped in rosy 
visions of a soap-inspired prosperity. Brawn holding 
himself in pity. 

By the side of a huge fallen tree Phyllida spread 
her blanket. “If you had only brought your book. 
Job, you might read to us,” she twinkled at him mali¬ 
ciously. 

“Listen,” replied Brawn. “You two needn’t sit 
around here just because I’m here. I don’t have to be 
watched. Why don’t you take Phil across there to that 
old windmill. Cloud? Or is it a windmill?” 

“Huh? Suits me.” 

“You two quit bothering yourselves about my enter¬ 
tainment,” said Phyllida. “Elere’s where we sit.” 
And she plumped herself down on a pillow. 

The men slowly followed suit. Cloud stretched 
himself down at full length, his head and shoulders on 
the blanket, his feet out amongst the pine cones and 
needles. And almost immediately he went to sleep. 


288 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

Phyllida was on the point of breaking a long silence by 
addressing a remark to him when he began to snore. 
It was a soft, contented little snore, inspired no doubt 
by the sunlight and the faint aromatic odour and the 
popularity of his soap. Phyllida looked at Brawn and 
smiled. 

The wind came in long rustling sweeps through the 
tree tops and far above them a hawk was circling in 
great lazy arcs, now a black dot against the deep blue 
of the sky, now flashing across a fleecy cloud, a crazy, 
wild, wind-tossed thing. A little patch of pale laven¬ 
der-coloured flowers were gently moving their heads, 
sending off an elusive, wild scent, and in a clump of 
aspens a flock of tiny birds were chattering. It was a 
silly, futile sound for all that vast, wind-swept, cloud- 
shadowed amphitheatre—a trivial sound that one 
might put aside with his hand, seeking the clouds and 
the blue sky in his desires, and the hawk in his tremen¬ 
dous circles. 

It was the first time that Brawn had been so far 
afield. He leaned his head against the huge bole and 
closed his eyes. And to his senses, thus the more acute, 
came the whispering suggestion of utter freedom. It 
was as though his soul and mind, twisted together into 
one hard little knot of pettinesses, were torn apart and 
sent streaming and free in the sunlight and the wind. 
Faintly to his ears came a far-off eerie whistle, piercing 
the clouds. He opened his eyes and looked at Phyl¬ 
lida. And she, catching the question in his face, shook 
her head and smiled. It was a wistful smile. 

“Phil,” he whispered, “you go with Jerry. Hear 
me? I want you to.” 

She said nothing. And they sat and watched the sky 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 289 

and listened to the wind in the tree tops and Jerry’s 
gentle rasping. The sun passed behind a cloud and 
at once the air grew chill; the sweep of the meadow to 
the mountain edge a sombre shadow. 

“Phil,” said Brawn again. “You must go. What’ll 
we do with him—if you don’t?” with a motion of the 
head toward Cloud. 

She shrugged her shoulders. And then Jerry moved, 
drew one foot up under him off the needle carpet, and 
awakened. He sat up, blinked and shivered. “Gee! 
Thought it was snowing. Great old place you’ve got 
here. Brawn.” 

The other two laughed. 

They went to the dance—Phyllida and Cloud. It 
was decided in the kitchen over the cooking supper. 
At the table they sat in the candlelight—the Brawns 
always dined in candlelight when they had company— 
and every one was cheerful and jolly. “I’ll be sore if 
you don’t, Phil,” Brawn had said, and the others had 
not offered much opposition. They talked for a few 
minutes of old times and parties. And they laughed 
and seemed to think many things foolish and immature 
which in the old days carried the weight of grave im¬ 
portance. “I remember one night,” said Brawn, “when 
I met you, Jerry, in the rain. I was coming from Phil’s 
—why, I believe it was the night I sold it to her. I 
believe it was. And you were all wet and soaked with 
the rain. And we were about as glad to see each other 
as two cats over a line.” Brawn laughed. “I used to 
be jealous of you, Jerry, though what about, I can’t 
imagine.” He paused a moment. “I a—I even im¬ 
agined you were on your way to Phil’s that night,” he 
chuckled to himself. 



290 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

Phyllida looked thoughtful. And then she looked 
at Cloud. “Why, you were, weren’t you, Jerry? 
That was the night-” 

“Was I?” said Cloud. “I don’t remember.” 

“Why, yes. Your uncle had just died and you 
couldn’t borrow any money. And you came to tell me 
all about it.” 

Cloud looked at the ceiling blankly. 

^ “You didn’t tell me about it, Phil,” said Brawn. 

“No. Of course not. It wasn’t any of your busi¬ 
ness. It was Jerry’s.” 

They got ready for the dance. Cloud brushed his 
teeth and combed his hair—until it was sleek and shiny. 
And then Phyllida came from her room. She stood 
in the doorway in her filmy dress of sea-foam green, 
in her white kid slippers, with her white arms bare and 
slender fingers clutching the folds of her skirts. In 
the shadowy doorway, in the faint yellow candlelight 
flickering circles on the low ceiling, she looked like a bit 
of dream mist, a creature fashioned out of the fabric 
of memories—so slender she was, and fair. 

“How do I look?” she said. 

“Great!” said Cloud. And she came and joined 
them. 

Brawn listened to the sputter of the motor as they 
rolled up to the gate. Then he heard the gate screak 
and drag on the sandy ground. Faintly he heard 
Cloud’s voice and then the sputter of the motor again, 
the grind of wheels, and then it all died away into the 
distance. He was glad Phyllida was going to have a 
good time. 

For a short while he dozed, aware of the black, box¬ 
like little room, the rather stuffy smell of hot pine 



JOHN-NO-BRAWN 291 

boards cooling, with just the rim of his consciousness. 
And then something came and brushed against the 
screen in his window. That in itself would have been 
unimportant. But then the thing uttered a soft, plain¬ 
tive cry. He heard it dimly in his dream and fashioned 
something of it. The cry came again, louder and more 
persistent and again the scraping against the screen. 
Brawn wakened suddenly and lay, staring at the ceiling. 
Black darkness crowded down all about him and 
the night air was very chill, sweeping across his bed 
through the window. Something in the dream had 
shaken his composure though he had forgotten it im¬ 
mediately. 

There it was again, scraping against the window 
screen. He raised himself in bed and saw a shadow 
outlined in the lower black square. It was moving and 
he could hear the soft grating as it moved and a curious, 
low, sputtering noise. Like a flash it occurred to him it 
was like the purring of a cat. 

He lay quite still. He wondered what he should do, 
coming gradually into full consciousness—a conscious¬ 
ness that took cognizance of the darkness and the si¬ 
lence and the cold. He was alone. And there was a 
creature there beyond his window, separated from him 
by a piece of wire netting. It could easily burst 
through—into the room, though now it was merely 
pressing against the screen, muttering to itself. He 
had heard of lynxes and bob-cats and mountain lions. 
In the rocks were coyotes and Phyllida had seen the 
tracks of deer. That thing, standing there—what 
was it? 

He lay motionless, watching. He began to plan. 
Some creature, lured thither by the smell of food, was 


292 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

at his window—just what it was he did not know, 

though the purring could only mean- He felt a 

curious thrill at the thought. He was alone. There 
was no one he could call on. And there was only a 
fragile screen between. 

He suddenly remembered that In the corner by his 
bed there was an old alpenstock. It was like a walking 
stick with a curved handle, only at the tip there was a 
long pointed ferrule of heavy metal for striking Into 
the ground. It had been In that corner ever since 
they had moved into the cottage. That is—If Phyllida 
had not moved it. He stretched back his hand and 
groped along the wall. For a moment he thought it 
was gone as he leaned softly out of bed reaching Into 
the corner, his eyes fixed on the window. And there 
came a gleam, a green, phosphorescent gleam from the 
window and he knew that he was being watched. The 
scraping sound had ceased. 

His fingers touched a round hard object; he grasped 
the handle that was like a cane’s. And then, softly, 
hardly daring to breathe and moving so slowly that it 
Vv^as almost Imperceptible even to himself, he drew his 
weapon to him and raised It in the air. Slowly he drew 
his feet up under him and all the time those two green 
spots regarded him, motionless. He poised himself 
for a moment and then with all his strength launched 
the weapon forward, holding It like a spear, with the 
weight of his body behind it. There was a ripping 
sound and then the feel of something soft and a cry. 
And without stopping to Investigate the success of his 
stroke. Brawn sprang from his bed and across the 
floor through the door which he slammed behind him 
Into the living room. There was a Colt automatic In 



JOHN-NO-BRAWN 293 

the desk drawer, also a pocket flashlight. These two 
indispensable articles had come early into his mind. 
He found them quickly. And then—to rid the place 
of the danger that threatened—Brawn softly stepped 
across the floor and, pistol in hand, pushed open the 
door, an inch at a time. 

There was not a sound. He switched on the flash¬ 
light and sprayed it across the floor. There was noth¬ 
ing unless the bed might be concealing something 
beneath it. Against the window sill lay the alpenstock; 
the screen had been pushed from its place by the force 
of the blow, evidently, for there was the black, cold 
square of the open window. Brawn paused a moment 
and then sprang in and pulled down the sash. A wild 
creature would hesitate to jump through a pane of 
glass, he thought. And then he picked up the stick and 
held it in the light. There was a tiny bit of fur stick¬ 
ing to it-Tut that was all. 

He stood in the dark in indecision. For a moment he 
thought he might sleep in one of the other rooms. But 
they would be no better than this one. So he closed 
the other window and got back into bed. His gun he 
slipped under the pillow where he could touch it by 
merely moving his hand. And then he looked at his 
watch. It was eleven o’clock. 

Of course it was not possible for him to go to sleep. 
He would lie awake until Cloud and Phyllida returned 
and he would tell them about it. And in the morning 
they would go and look for the animal. There might 
be some signs of it, though he doubted that he had 
really killed it. There had been no blood on the fer¬ 
rule. 

The room began to feel stuffy. Faint sounds from 


294 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

the outdoors came to him muffled and indistinct. He 
had chilled himself in those few moments of action. 
And he wondered if he had done himself any harm 
lunging forward that way with the cane. He felt his 
pulse. It was hammering away at a great rate—prob¬ 
ably one hundred and twenty to the minute. 

For a long time he lay, listening. A slight nausea 
took hold of him and there was a throbbing in his 
temples. He looked at his watch again. It was a 
quarter after twelve. He would have to wait another 
hour, he supposed. He hoped that they would come 
soon so that he could give Cloud the gun and Cloud 
could look around the house and see if that creature 
was gone. 

At one o’clock the world was just as still as ever, 
with only occasional stirrings of the wind in the aspens 
against the house. At half past one the nausea had 
begun to subside and his pulse had slowed down a bit, 
too, he thought. He looked at his watch no more. 

• • • 

There was a drumming in his ear. He tried to 
shake the sound off but it persisted. He awoke. He 
sat up in bed. A reddish, pearly light came through 
the window and the insistent thrumming, if anything, 
seemed louder on his wall. It was a woodpecker 
come early, hunting for grubs in the dry, bark coating 
of his cabin. It was morning. Now he could find 
what had been visiting him the night before. 

He slid his feet out on to the floor and felt for his 
slippers. He wondered when Phyllida and Cloud 
could have come in; he had not heard them. As he 
stood up a vast dizziness came over him and that 
gripping nausea, so he stood perfectly still and directly 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 29 5 

the feeling passed. He walked to the door, opened 
it and looked through. Phyllida’s long coat hung 
over a chair. On the table lay Jerry’s hat. 

Quietly he dressed himself and then opened the front 
door and went outside. He came to the dislocated 
screen lying on the grass. He picked it up. There 
was a little hole in the wire near the lower part of the 
frame. That was all. He looked about in the bushes 
but there was no sign of anything. He walked all 
around the house. It was just as any normal house 
should be: quiet and hollow-eyed and still. 

He came and sat on the porch and watched the sun¬ 
light spread across the hills like a fan. Far off towered 
the peaks, lofty and cold and supreme in the dawn. 
His heart was still thumping and there was a hard 
lump in his throat as if he were going to be seasick. 
All this and the stillness. He knew he was going to be 
ill. But he would wait till they got up. 

It was nearly ten o’clock when Phyllida’s door 
opened. She came out on the porch and found Brawn 
sitting with his forehead in his hand. “Sorry I’m so 
late,” she said. “Jerry up yet?” 

“No.” 

“Oh—yum. Gee! But that was a good party. 
You ought to have come.” 

He did not reply, did not look up. 

“Been up long? What do you want for breakfast? 
And we’ve got the niftiest little plan for you.” She 
rubbed her eyes and stood yawning at the mountain 
range. 

“Don’t want anything.” 

“What’s the matter?” She came and laid a hand 
on his shoulder. “Off your feed a little?” 


296 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

“Had a narrow escape from being killed last night,” 
he said, looking up at her solemn and gaunt-eyed. 

“That’s interesting,” she yawned. “Listen, Job, 
there’s some people at the Westmore—from Cleve¬ 
land. Regular folks and they’re going to-” 

“ ’Sfact. Come over here and I’ll show you.” 
He got up and took her hand and drew her to the 
edge of the porch. 

“But wait till I tell you. They’ve come out here 

in two cars and they’re going on up to- Wait a 

minute. Job, till I tell you all about it!” 

“See, here’s the screen. See the hole in it. There 
was some kind of animal on my window sill and I 
stabbed it with that pointed cane. Can’t find it any¬ 
where about the house. Maybe I didn’t kill it.” 

Phyllida picked up the screen and put it back in 
place in the window. “Did you see it. Job?” 

Jerry Cloud came around the corner of the house. 
“What’s the row about?” 

“Job’s killed a mountain lion.” 

And then they both laughed. 

“Go on. Laugh, both of you. Show your ignor¬ 
ance. I didn’t say it was a mountain lion. I don’t 
know what it was. I couldn’t see it very well.” 

“What did it look like. Brawn?” 

“Don’t know. It had green eyes. It was too 
dark, and I didn’t wait to see.” 

Cloud laughed. “Probably some old tomcat. 
What did you do? Spear him like a fish?” 

“But let’s not talk about the old cat,” said Phyllida. 
“Listen, Job. I was telling him, Jerry, that the Ser- 
combs asked us to go with them up to Grand Lake. 
This afternoon. They’re leaving the village at two, 




JOHN-NO-BRAWN 297 

Job, and theyVe got room for three or four more. 
It’s lovely up at Grand Lake and I know you’d enjoy 
it and the Sercombs knew old Mr. Hodges years 
ago. 

“I don’t want to go,” said Brawn, shortly. 

She took him by the arm. “You’re hungry. Poor 
thing, he wants his breakfast.” She started leading 
him around to the porch. “We’ll talk about it at the 
table.” 

“I don’t want any breakfast,” said Brawn. He 
walked up the steps and across the porch and opened 
the door. 

“Where’re you going. Job?” Phyllida looked sig¬ 
nificantly at Cloud and smiled. 

“To bed,” said Brawn. 

He heard the low hum of their voices as he closed 
his bedroom door behind him. Then he took off his 
clothes and crawled in. He was still a bit dizzy and 
there was a dull, gnawing ache in his stomach. 

A short while later Phyllida came in with a tray. 
“Can’t you eat a little something. Job? Maybe it 
would make you feel a little better.” 

“Had too much now,” said Brawn, without opening 
his eyes. 

She stood and regarded him, tray in her hand. 
“Don’t you think you’d feel better if you did. Job?” 

“No,” he said, shortly. “Thank you.” 

The door closed. 

He was no good. The least little thing “put him 
on the bum.” If he had to depend on himself he 
would soon go to pieces. The slightest thing—chop¬ 
ping a little wood, walking a short distance for any¬ 
thing—would “put him on the bum.” It was worse 


298 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

than being dead. No one understood. The pain was 

tightening about his temples. 

The door opened again. Phyllida stood before 
him—he gazed at her through the spread fingers of 
his hand which he held across his eyes. She had on 
her hat and coat and there was a look of grave concern 
on her face. 

“Job,” she began softly, “I’m sorry. But I have to 
go to the village again. Jerry’ll take me and we’ll 
hurry back.” She paused and seemed undecided. 
“You don’t think you’d like to take that trip? It’s 
a big car. And the people are lovely people. Maybe 
it’d do you good.” 

He raised up on one elbow. Why was it she 
wouldn’t understand? “I tell you, I can’t. I’m sick. 
Every time I move, my dinner comes up. And my 
head is aching fit to split. And I have a pain right 
here,” tapping his chest vaguely. “I’m no good, 
Phil,” he went on and his voice trembled. “I can’t do 
the least thing. I’m not any better than I was. I’m 
—I’m not going to get well.” 

“Oh, that’s nonsense,” she said easily. “Well, I’ll 
have to go and tell Mrs. Sercomb. She was so lovely 
to me. Now quit your worrying about yourself.” 
She came and laid her hand on his head, a quick, fleet¬ 
ing touch. “We won’t be gone an hour.” 

She had hardly gone when he regretted his refusal; 
it would have been very pleasant to meet some real 
people. He had not been away from the cottage 
since he first came into it nine months before. He heard 
the “flivver” climb the hill to the gate. 

He became restless. He wished he had eaten some¬ 
thing after all. Maybe the headache would leave if 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 299 

he ate something. And it was a hideously quiet place 
with no one in it. He got up, put on his slippers and 
bath robe, and wandered out into the kitchen. He 
opened a box of crackers and ate one. He ate an¬ 
other. And another. Then he got himself a glass 
of milk. And then he felt better. 

He walked out upon the porch again. It was selfish 
of him, perhaps, to keep Phyllida from going. But 
then for her to be gone two or three days—well, he 
couldn’t get along. 

The hour passed rather quickly; there was so much 
to consider. And directly Brawn saw them coming 
through the gate. 

Phyllida came and took him by the shoulder. “I’m 
glad to see you’re better. Job.” Cloud hung about 
in the background. Somehow the look of solicitation 
on the faces of both of them irritated him more than 
would have complete disregard. 

“Here’s a letter for you.” She tossed it into his 
lap. “The Sercombs were awfully sorry. They 
wanted to meet you.” 

Brawn opened the letter, scanned it, and then went 
suddenly cold. 

“They said they would wait until three o’clock in 
case you should change your mind. Or in case I 
should decide to come without you,” she laughed. 

“Come on. Brawn,” said Jerry, suddenly appearing 
in the foreground. “You’ve just got a bit of a grouch 
on. It’s not going to hurt you?” 

“Dammit,” flared Brawn, “attend to your own busi¬ 
ness, will you?” He flourished the paper. “You 
don’t know anything about it. And here this has 
come.” 


300 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

“What is it, Job?” Phyllida came and took the 
letter from him. “Why, it’s nothing,” she said in a 
moment. “Just an order for you to report for ex- 
amination.” 

“Yes. And how am I going to comply with their 
unreasonable demands? That’s a long trip—down 
to Denver.” 

“But it’s not unreasonable, Job. You came up 
here.” 

^ “Yes. And think of the expense.” 

“They’ll probably reimburse you. Don’t get 
worked up over it, Job.” 

And then Cloud responded to an untimely impulse. 
“It’s just what I told you. Brawn. You’ve stuck 
around here till you’ve got the jumps. Come on. Get 
your clothes on and come away and forget it.” 

Brawn felt a frantic desire to scream. But he 
fought it down. Above it all there hovered the image 
of a man in a long, white apron and a two-horned 
stethoscope. “Go away,” he said with trembling 
voice. “Go away, you two, and leave me.” And 
then with as much dignity as he could command he 
went into the house and again shut himself in his room. 

It was no longer a matter of regret that he had re¬ 
fused the party. What were parties now? A thin, 
bony finger was beckoning him—it actually seemed so 
to him. They wanted to get hold of him again, to 
listen to those insidious little suggestive voices in his 
chest. They would be telling him he had to stay in 
the hospital. He w'as slowly getting worse. He was 
feeling worse now than he had at any time since he 
left the hospital. He knew just exactly what they 
would tell him. And he did not know what to make of 


301 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

Phyllida. All of a sudden she seemed to draw away 
from him. She was no longer a refuge for him. 
She did not understand him, sympathize with him. It 
was quite likely she did not even care for him. After 
all, who should? He was just a drag. She was 
probably sticking to him out of a sense of duty. She 
was that kind. His thoughts were going round and 
round in a giddy whirl. Suddenly he took hold of 
himself. “This will never do. I’ll be making a fool 
of myself,” he thought. 

He became calmer. And then he was over¬ 
whelmed with pity for himself. It was with difficulty 
that he held back the tears. A door closed and he be¬ 
came at once acute. He heard a whispering and then 
another door. He sprang up from the bed—he had 
not removed his bathrobe—and went to see what it 
was about. He looked out. He tried to make it as 
casual as possible. 

His heart stopped in its beating. So—she was dis¬ 
obeying him—deliberately. 

Phyllida stood by the front door, one hand on the 
knob, the other clutching Jerry’s sleeve. She had on 
her hat and coat—her best ones—and at her feet sat 
her suit case. It was actually bulging. Her eyes, as 
Brawn entered, turned and looked into his and were 
wide and staring. Cloud—well. Cloud looked rather 
foolish, quite unnecessary. 

Brawn started to speak. But he was trembling so 
that words would not come, would not wait for each 
other. “I just wanted to tell you,” he addressed 
Phyllida and he tried to make his voice as airy and 
casual as possible. “You needn’t take any trouble for 
decency’s sake. It’s gone too far for that.” 


302 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

Her lips parted but she said nothing. Only she 
stood there looking at him. 

“Go on,” he continued and his voice seemed to grow 
steadier and colder. “Go as far as you like.” He 
waved his hand at the suit case. “You take a lot of 
trouble to land ’em—you and your mother. Though 
what you can have seen in me, I don’t know. I turned 
out bad on you. And I don’t blame you—you can’t 
help what you inherit. I don’t blame you except for 
your damn bad taste.” He turned furiously on Cloud. 
“Take her,” he said, “if you like—only don’t you come 
back here again.” 

Then he turned and went back into his room. 

Phyllida looked at Cloud and Cloud looked at 
Phyllida. Cloud’s face was white. Then slowly they 
went out the door. He helped her into the car and 
then pushed the suit case under her feet. 

“My God,” he giggled nervously and then he started 
the car. 

They passed out the gate without a word. This 
time Cloud remembered to shut it. He clambered 
in, threw in the foot pedal and moved up the 
throttle. 

“The onery brute,” he began after a moment— 
thoughtfully. 

“Never mind, Jerry.” 

They were rolling past the single little outpost pine, 
and below them the meadow dipped and went waviiig 
across the valley, flecked with sun and shadow. 

“What are you going to do, Phil? You can’t stand 
for that sort of thing. Be a sport. Let’s go to the 
houseparty anyway. He’ll come around. I don’t like 
to leave you—like this, Phil.” 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 303 

‘‘I wonder what your idea of being a sport is, 
Jerry?” 

They rounded a hill. They came in sight of Mr. 
Piggott’s cabin nestling up in a gutter of rocks. Mr. 
Piggott himself, in shirt sleeves and bareheaded, stood 
with elbows on his gate. He waved at them as they 
passed. 

Cloud caught a quick glance at Phyllida. She was 
biting her under lip and watching the road very closely. 
The suit case slid against his foot, impeding his move¬ 
ments and he gently pushed it away. It pressed against 
her foot and she looked down and seemed to see it for 
the first time. And then, deliberately, as though it 
were a matter of the greatest importance, she reached 
over, took it by the handle, lifted it and dropped it 
into the road. 

Jerry slowed down the car and looked at her and 
then back at the road. The suit case lay on the red 
sand in the bright sunlight, a discarded, unwanted 
thing. It had broken open; the two halves lay spread 
out like an open book. And across the road lay 
scattered a great number of empty milk bottles, all 
alike. Two of them were rolling slowly to the side 
of the road. 

“What did you do that for?” said Jerry. 

She made no reply. 

“I don’t see why you were in such a hurry to take 
’em back anyway, and now you’ve- Well-” 

“They were worth ten cents apiece at the store.” 

He turned and drove on. 

After a while she spoke to him again. “Jerry,” 
she said and her voice was soft. “I wonder if you’d 
mind—if you’d mind driving me down to Denver?” 




4 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

“No. But why Denver?” 

“I need reinforcements.” 

“Huh? When d’you want to go?” 
“Right now,” she said. 


CHAPTER XXVII 


J OHN BRAWN stood at the window and watched 
the tourists. Every few minutes a car would 
pass, a big luxurious limousine or an obsequious, 
chattering “flivver,” or one of the buses of the trans¬ 
fer company, long and flaming red, seating thirty 
passengers. Sometimes the sound of voices would 
come to him from the road—shrill, high-pitched, 
laughing voices. The sun was bright and the air was 
warm and the dust hung in a thin haze above the road. 

The house seemed still and dark; the wide porch on 
the south side shut off the direct rays of the sun. It 
was also a bit chill. Brawn walked into his bedroom 
where his clothes were piled on a chair. Slowly he 
began to dress. Then he went to his dresser and 
opened a drawer. He took out some toilet articles 
and laid them on a towel. And then he wrapped the 
towel up in a newspaper and tied the bundle with a 
string. 

He got his hat from a peg behind the front door, and 
with the package under his arm, he opened the front 
door and went out. The door did not close very 
easily; he had to slam it and the glass tinkled. There 
was no other sound so the noise of it was quite distinct. 

Up the slight incline he walked in the brown dirt. 
He opened the gate, stepped out on to the road, and 
then closed the gate behind him. He could see the 

305 


3o6 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

chimney top of the house and one corner of the roof 
above the shoulder of the knoll. And then he turned 
away and walked on. 

He stopped at Mr. Piggott’s. 

“Well,” said Mr. Piggott, “Pm glad to see you’re 
taking my advice. Get out and walk some. Makes 
your blood congeal.” 

“I wonder if you could take me down to Denver?” 
said Brawn. 

Mr. Piggott showed mild surprise. “Why, I 
dunno. The Lizzie’s not used to such a long trip. 
Shake you up pretty bad.” 

“That’s all right,” said Brawn. “Pve got a message. 
Can’t delay. Pll pay you the regular price.” 

Mr. Piggott bustled off to his stock yard. “Jest a 
jiffy. Pll have to fill her up and put some air in the 
tires. Dunno as how I might not like to go to the city 
myself. When’ll you be cornin’ back?” 

“I can’t say,” replied Brawn. “You needn’t wait 
on me. It’s government business.” 

“Oh,” said Mr. Piggott, his eyes widening. 

They were rolling down the road. 

“I seen the Missus around noontime goin’ toward 
the village with another feller.” 

“Yes. She’s gone to a houseparty at Grand Lake.” 

“Grand Lake is a fine place.” 

“So Pve heard,” said Brawn. 

At the village Brawn stopped and bought two ice 
cream cones. He was feeling hungry. 

“These are sure tasty little fixins’,” said Mr. Pig¬ 
gott. 

As they struck the high road out of the village they 
met a stream of cars. They climbed the hill from the 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 307 

valley and then took the downward slope. The road 
was very winding and at times quite steep. Mr. Pig- 
gott had to drive carefully, for at any turn in the 
road they were apt to meet another car. 

“That’s a fine woman of yours, Mr. Brawn.” 

“Yes.” 

“Most women who are hard enough to live out in 
a place like this all the year round lose their sweet 
lovin’ ways.” 

“I suppose so.” 

“A good looker, too.” 

Brawn was silent. 

“More of a talker than you.” 

Two hours later they rolled out of the canon and 
the hills were left behind them. They struck off due 
east across a flat, dusty plain. On parallel roads they 
could see automobiles darting along in both directions. 
The sun was low in the sky. 

Ten miles to the east they met another turnpike and 
from there on their way lay due south. “Denver 
road,” said Mr. Piggott. “Think I’ll stay over to¬ 
night and see a movie. They’ve some fine movies in 
Denver.” And then again after a short pause: “Are 
you connected with the Government, Mr. Brawn?” 

“I’m—what you might say tied to it. But it’s not 
tied to me.” 

Mr. Piggott looked puzzled. “Reckon Uncle Sam’s 
pretty independent to work for.” 

The sun dipped below the mountain rim. The sky 
was flaming red and the line of mountains was all 
dusky purple. Brawn was feeling stiff and tired. He 
had taken cognizance of every car that passed. Now 
it seemed that the traffic had ceased. Back in his 


3o8 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

head had been hammering the thought that he would 
be missed, that his departure would cause some sur¬ 
prise. Besides this there was a feeling of disturbance, 
a dull, hurt feeling, a feeling of having been greatly- 
wronged but of not caring greatly. And there was 
something dogged within him, pushing him on. 

“Reckon I’d better stop and get some gasoline,” 
said Mr. Piggott. “Didn’t have much in my can when 
I loaded her up. I wouldn’t want to get stuck on the 
road.” 

“There’s a village on up ahead,” said Brawn. 

“Yes. Lafayette. They’ve got gasoline for sale 
there.” 

Twilight descended upon them as they rolled out 
upon the main street of Lafayette. About a block 
from the edge of town stood the white filling station, 
its glare already softened by the dusk. Another car 
of the same abbreviated style and shortness as their 
own stood at the pump. 

They rolled up behind the other car. There was 
a woman sitting in it and the driver, a man, was stand¬ 
ing on the driveway behind it, looking into the storage 
compartment, the compartment that looks like a 
beetle’s back. 

At the sight of them. Brawn’s face went very white. 
He opened the door and stepped out upon the run¬ 
ning board. “Here,” said Mr. Piggott, “you needn’t 
get out.” 

Brawn did not seem to hear him. He walked 
around the front of his car and touched the man on 
the shoulder. The man looked up. It was Jerry 
Cloud. His face had a blank, vague look. 

“You lied to me,” said Brawn. “Besides the other 


309 


J0HN-N0~BRAWN 

things you did. I thought for a while you didn’t have 
so much to do with it. But you made a mistake. I’m 
not sick enough for you to do all those things.” 

He struck Jerry Cloud between the eyes with his 
fist. Jerry reeled up against the queer-looking tool 
box of his car and some tools fell to the concrete pave¬ 
ment and tinkled musically. Jerry straightened up 
and was about to speak when Brawn struck him again, 
full upon the mouth, and then again. He rained 
blows upon him, for strangely enough the latter did 
not seem to know how to ward them off. With each 
blow Brawn would give that peculiar twisting move¬ 
ment of the wrist as his arm shot forward. They had 
taught him that in bayonet class in the army and he 
carried it out with mechanical, thoughtful precision. 
He was wondering when he should stop—his victim 
was so mute and unresisting—when Jerry sank to the 
pavement and lay huddled in a heap. He had not 
thought he was striking out that hard. The figure, 
too, seemed quite impersonal and all the anger seemed 
to go out of Brawn. And then he caught a glimpse of 
Phyllida’s face. It was dim and white as through a 
veil. 

He turned and walked back to his car. Mr. Piggott 
was leaning over, holding open the door for him and 
there was a very queer expression on his face. Brawn 
started to get in when there was a violent tickling in 
his throat. He coughed. But the tickling persisted 
and he coughed again. A paroxysm of coughing seized 
him; that catch in his throat would not go away. He 
felt dizzy and a little weak. And then there was 
something warm and salt tasting in his mouth. He 
spat. He raised his handkerchief and pressed it to 



310 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

his mouth. He removed it and looked at it. It was 
soaked—dark red, with blood. 

Again there was Mr. Piggott’s face, looking so 
queerly. And the lights of the filling station came on 
and winked dizzily. Suddenly it began to get cold 
and Brawn looked at Mr. Piggott and smiled. Mr. 
Piggott did not know what he was smiling for. 

“It’s come,” said Brawn to Mr. Piggott. 

And then the lights began to go round and round 
and there was a blur of faces, white and very near, 
and the sound of voices. And then he knew no more. 


CHAPTER XXVIII 


I ^HE sunlight beat down upon the naked plain. 

B As far as the eye could reach there was no 
shadow in which to hide. The earth was 
parched, the weeds were as in late autumn. Over to 
the west the clouds were massing, obscuring the moun¬ 
tains, great, white clouds with black centres, the sky 
by contrast at their edges the deepest blue. 

Out of the distance a small dark spot was moving. 
It seemed to progress by agile darts and then again 
hover almost without motion, according as its trajec¬ 
tory intersected the line of vision. Behind it stretched 
a long, feathery tail, faintly vibrant, feebly imbued 
with life. A streak of bluish lightning forked in the 
heavens, contrasting strangely with the yellow glare 
of the foreground and beneath it sprang to life myriad 
dust clouds, tiny, frantic, yellow swirls that came roll¬ 
ing out upon the plain. They swept along until with 
a final spurt they vanished upward into nowhere and 
all was quiet again. On came the moving speck with 
the feathery tail and the sunlight beat down in a 
blinding glare. 

It was nearing noon and the air was dry and hot. 
The ambulance bumped along over the deep, hard 
ruts. Blimp — iimp — ump — ump. Bump — ump. John 
Brawn lay on his back and watched the ceiling, a 




312 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

thing of ribs and canvas. Through the oblong open¬ 
ing of the doorway he could see the gathering clouds. 
He saw the lightning fork and the wind arise, send¬ 
ing the dust clouds scurrying. It was as if they were 
being pursued. Behind his head he could hear the 
low rasp of voices, of the driver and his helper. 

The clouds were coming nearer; he could tell by 
measuring the intervening distance between their edge 
and the line of the door top. He wondered which 
would win: the ambulance or the storm. There came 
a bump, more violent than usual. Everything took 
on a vague ceilingward motion. The car stopped. 
He could hear a scraping against the curtain. Some 
one was getting out. A voice called from the road 
and in answer to it came the sudden shout of the 
driver: “Git me one, too, Ed,” and then silence. For 
a few minutes all was quiet save for the sighing bursts 
of wind and a rustling as of tree tops in motion. The 
voice called again; there was a clumping sound of 
feet, the scrape of the curtains. “Y’owe me a dime,” 
said a voice. The car started to roll along more 
slowly for a short distance. Once more it stopped. 
The curtain was lifted near Brawn’s head; he was con¬ 
scious of a staring pair of eyes, heard a thick, laboured 
breathing, and then the curtain dropped. “Aw ite,” 
called a guttural voice. 

Slowly they moved forward with a soft, grinding 
noise. Then through the oblong of the doorway 
Brawn caught sight of two, tall, gray columns of con¬ 
crete and an iron gate standing open, all gradually 
receding. Between the posts hung a wooden sign, 
moving gently to and fro in the wind. Looking after 
them stood a sentry, his hat stuck on the back of his 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 313 

head, his rifle sprawled across his shoulder like a water- 
pole. 

Then along the roadside appeared a line of puny, 
sickly saplings with little tufts of leaves at the top. 
They looked like worn-out feather dusters. The 
sidewalk glared in the sunlight and they passed a 
nurse hurrying homeward in her white dress and cap. 
She looked at them as they passed. And then on the 
left a long, gray building appeared and around it the 
dirt lay in yellow heaps and weeds stuck out their 
heads from the edges of the walk, a ragged fringe. A 
hush hung over the place. From the west the clouds 
came pressing. The lightning forked, hung poised 
an infinitesimal instant, and then was gone. More 
buildings passed and the soft grinding gave way to 
smooth, solid going. 

The brakes screaked and the car stopped. There 
was a momentary confusion, a scraping and sound of 
feet. And then Brawn felt himself gently lifted and 
carried forward. Suddenly the sunlight fell across his 
eyes in a blinding glare and he threw up his arms to 
shut it out. He was carried along with a gentle, 
swinging motion and then up a flight of steps. The 
glare faded. He lowered his arms. Some one was 
holding open a door through which they were carry¬ 
ing him. He caught a glimpse of a red-tiled roof 
with heavy tile ridge corners. A slender pole rose 
from the central peak of the roof and from it fluttered 
a small, white flag with a bright red cross. And then 
the door closed. There was a hush, the cool touch of 
a breeze as from a cellar, the faint odour of formalin 
and the sound of distant shuffling feet. “Room thirty- 
one,” called a voice and he went swinging gently on. 


CHAPTER XXIX 


C APTAIN PARKER paused at the door. “See 
that he is kept perfectly still, Miss Piper. 
Not to be allowed to leave his bed under any 
circumstances.” He paused and looked at the door, 
thoughtfully. “I’ll not have time to examine him 
to-day. Perhaps to-morrow. The usual alcohol 
rub.” 

Miss Piper bowed and he departed. 

She passed through the room out on to the sleeping 
porch. In her hand she held a thermometer. Brawn 
submissively let her put it in his mouth. Then she 
took his wrist and began to count his pulse. She was 
a tall, full-blown sort of person with regular features 
and satiny black hair. There was in her eyes a know¬ 
ing sort of look. It was as if life held no secrets 
from her whatever. 

She finished the silent toll, looked up at him and 
smiled with her lips. “Hmm! How do you feel? 
Want anything?” 

“Pretty good,” said Brawn. “Any temp?” 

“Oh, perhaps,” she replied evasively. “Who wants 
to know?” 

Each regarded the other. 

“Who brought that stuff?” asked Brawn after a 
moment, waving his hand toward his army locker in 
the corner. 


314 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 315 

“Motor transport, I imagine.” 

He seemed not to hear her. “Funny. I didn’t 
send for it. But then it’s just as well.” 

Miss Piper turned to go. 

“By the way,” Brawn detained her. “Find out for 
me, will you, by what authority I was admitted here.” 

“Former patient, weren’t you?” said the nurse. 
“And you’re a—sick enough.” 

“Yes, I know. But somebody’s got to start things” 
—he smiled reflectively—“unless—unless, as my old 
governor used to say, ‘The latch string’s always on 
the outside.’ Door’s always open.” 

“Oh, not as easy as that,” said Miss Piper. She 
seemed a bit impatient. 

“It doesn’t matter much. I was just curious.” She 
was leaving. “Get me a book, will you?” 

“No reading,” she said, over her shoulder. 

“What did he say?” 

“Ask him.” She was gone. 

It was nearing four o’clock and the sunlight was 
bright against the opposite wall. There was no one 
in the adjoining room, so he was the sole occupant of 
the porch. Raising his head he could see other men 
in pajamas and bathrobes, some sitting on their beds, 
others leaning over the balustrade, but they were so 
far away that apparently no sound came from them. 

He was feeling drowsy; there was a faint drum¬ 
ming in the air. He closed his eyes and slept. 

When he awoke, the orderly was coming with his 
supper. He ate perfunctorily, without regard for 
what he was eating. When he had finished the orderly 
took away the tray again. There was not a word 
spoken. 


3i6 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

The shadows began to lengthen. Across the field 
to the south there came a babble of voices. Some one 
was carrying a mandolin and every now and then he 
would tinkle it a little. The sound was very gentle— 
rather sweet In the distance. Over to the southwest, 
near the horizon, the evening star was winking a pale 
eye and the sunset tints were fading from the sky, 
leaving It smooth and gray. Brawn lay watching It 
for a moment and then turned over and rooted his 
face Into the pillows. 

Miss Piper came with a tall, square bottle. “Turn 
over on your side,” she said. 

The cool touch of alcohol, that was somewhat oily 
besides, felt good to him. His back was really quite 
tired and Miss Piper’s hands were soothing. “Been 
up in the mountains?” she said after a bit. 

“Yes,” said Brawn. 

She rubbed away quietly. “A lot of the men come 
back after they have been out a few months. What 
was the matter? Work too hard?” 

“No. Don’t think I did quite enough.” 

The soft pressure of her hands ceased. “That’s 
what they all say. You can’t get too much rest.” 
The soft, lazy tone in her voice was gone. She rose 
to her feet, put the stopper in her bottle, and left him. 

Night fell. And with it came the coughing—up 
from Lower West. Faint and indistinct and of no 
importance it was to Brawn. He no longer seemed 
to feel. There was no chafing of restraint. It was 
as if he was no longer called upon. Nothing mattered. 
His mind was In a curious state of quiet—a sort of 
satisfaction with himself. Things were out of his 
hands. 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 317 

Toward nine o’clock the wind came up. Light, 
fleecy clouds went drifting across the face of the moon; 
he could see a shadowy tree top bend over against the 
sky. 

At eleven o’clock the next morning Miss Piper 
dropped in as she was passing. She looked down at 
him in her knowing way and then she straightened his 
bed covers. 

“There was a lady came to the office this morning to 
ask about you,” she said. “A young lady. She asked 
if you were going to stay.” 

Brawn started. He looked intently into her face 
and then he looked away. “Was there anybody with 
her?” he asked at length, casually. 

“No. She didn’t leave her name. I just happened 
to be in the office at the time. Get your nourishment 
this morning?” 

Brawn did not answer. 

She left him staring at the ceiling. 

At a quarter past three Miss Piper returned with 
her little tray of thermometers. She found Brawn 
standing before his mirror adjusting his tie. 

“Why!” she said, aghast. “What does this mean? 
Get back into your bed.” 

Brawn turned around at her and smiled. There 
was a curious light in his face, she remembered after¬ 
ward. “I can’t,” he said. “Pm going out.” 

She laid her tray down on the table and came and 
took him by the arm. “Now, Mr. Brawn, let’s not 
be unreasonable.” Her tone was soft and cajoling, 
with as near an entreaty in it as she was able to ac¬ 
complish. “You know you’re not. Now get back 
into bed.” 


3i8 JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

He pulled away. “Miss Piper,” he said, drawing 
himself up, “when I came in here there was nothing 
else, I thought, for me to do. But I was wrong.” 
His voice trembled and then his face took on that set 
expression she had seen men wear on parade when 
about to receive a medal or some sort of military dis¬ 
tinction. She was momentarily fascinated. “You 
can’t just think of yourself. Miss Piper,” he went on^ 
“w'hen there’s somebody else that needs you.” A 
curious shadow seemed to fall across his eyes. He 
was, as it were, swept by counter currents of thought 
—as when a gusty wind meets the incoming tide. “It’s 
more, even, than when they just want you—^being 
needed is. You’ve got to decide that yourself. The 
other is out of your hands.” 

He caught her preoccupied look and he hastened to 
add; “It’s nothing that’s happened, I assure you. It’s 
merely that I’ve been thinking and I’ve come to cer¬ 
tain conclusions. One can’t be too dogmatic, you 
know. Miss Piper. And so I’ll have to go in town.” 
He turned from her and proceeded with the tying of 
his tie. 

Miss Piper hurried away. 

, In a few minutes she returned with Captain Parker. 
The captain wore a heavy scowl. They found Brawn 
slipping into his coat. 

“What does this mean, Lieutenant?” asked the cap¬ 
tain. 

Brawn reached up to the slielf and got his hat. “I’ve 
got to go out. Captain. In town for a while.” 

“But I’ve given orders you were not to leave your 
bed.” 

“I know. Captain. I’m sorry. But it’s absolutely 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 319 

necessary.” He looked from the doctor to Miss 
Piper. 

The captain was impatient. “You know what will 
happen to you if you do? You’re in a very dangerous 
condition, Brawn.” 

“Yes, perhaps. But that can’t be considered. Cap¬ 
tain. There are some things that rise above a man’s 
consideration for himself. There’s his duty.” 

“A man’s got no duty when he’s as sick as you are. 
Why, you’d hardly reach the gate.” 

Brawn smiled. “Of course you’d look at it from 
that viewpoint. All doctors want to prolong life. 
Other people—the laymen—prefer to live it.” 

“Come, come, Mr. Brawn,” interjected the nurse. 
“Go back to bed, won’t you? The captain is telling 
you straight—for your own good.” 

Captain Parker brushed her aside impatiently: 
“That’ll be all right. Now listen. Lieutenant. We’re 
not bound to take you in here. And we will not keep 
you in here if you break the rules. You go out that 
door and you don’t come back. Is that clear to you?” 

Brawn stood with, his hand on the knob. “So, if I 
go now, I can’t come back?” He paused and consid¬ 
ered. “Well, I don’t suppose you can help it. You 
only do as you’re told. And it wouldn’t do any good 
to explain things to you. Don’t know as I’d care to. 
You’d tell me to write a note or something. But I 
can’t do that. It wouldn’t be the right way. It 
wouldn’t be enough.” He seemed to be talking to 
some protagonist of his own mind. Suddenly he 
turned to Miss Piper and laughed. “If I’m not care¬ 
ful you’ll get me to worrying about myself again. Who 
wants to live forever, anyway?” 


320 


JOHN-NO-BRAWN 

“Take your time. It won’t look so important to¬ 
morrow,” said she. 

Captain Parker started to speak but controlled him¬ 
self and was silent. 

“That stuff,” said Brawn, “over in the corner—I’ll 
send for it in a day or two maybe. Well! I didn’t 
stay long, did I.” He laughed. “So long, every¬ 
body.” 

To his mocking bravado there was no answer. 

They watched him go down the corridor, walking 
slowly and a bit unsteadily. 

“Wonder what’s eatin’ on him?” said Miss Piper. 
“Talks like he’s rehearsing for some play or some¬ 
thing.” 

“Damn fool!” exploded Parker. “What is one 
going to do when they get like that?” He threw out 
his hands in a gesture of resignation. 

Brawn approached the end of the hall. They 
watched him near the stairway, saw him reel slightly 
and then reach out his hand and take hold of the ban¬ 
ister—saw him steady himself. He paused there for 
a moment, looking down. And then he passed round 
the partition corner, out of sight. 


THE END 





































































































































































